4D/3N Poonhill - Grandruk short trek circuit.
From the first contact with the company they have been very prompt, polite and helpful in answering our questions. We subsequently booked with Nepal Mountain Club. Ravi visited us at our hotel the day before our trek to take payment and answer any final questions we had in regards to items to take on the trek, as well as giving us more detail about the next few days. Ravi again was very polite, friendly and very pleasant to deal with.
Day 1: we were collected promptly at 8:30am by a taxi, along with our guide Dadhi. Ravi also came at 8:30am to make sure we got off swiftly and that everything was okay and to give Dadhi our hiking permits which they had organised for us. After a 1.5hr scenic drive to Nayapool we left our taxi driver and commenced our hike. We hiked for around 3hrs uphill to a lunch stop. The menu was tailored to hikers, eg. Pasta, noddles, rice etc, which averaged around 450npr for a dish and 200npr for a fizzy drink. We then continued for another xxxxx hrs to Ulleri where we slept over night. Again, the food on offer was very similar and very nice. The accommodation exceeded our expectations, it was very basic but all it needed to be, with an en-suite and “proper toilet”. The format for ordering food throughout was; arrive to our accommodation, preorder our dinner for a desired time via Dadhi, then before heading to bed we preordered our breakfast for the following morning at a set time.
Accommodation: Purnima Guest House, Ulleri
Day 2: After having breakfast we left around 7:30am for a shorter days trekking of approximately 4.5hrs, we got to Ghorepani at around 12pm, where we stayed the night. It was nice to relax and unwind for the afternoon, again the accommodation was basic but very nice, comfortable beds with a panoramic mountain view. The shower was gas boiler heated. Fine. The weather was very cloudy so the visibility was very poor for the rest of the day/evening. We suggest taking some playing cards for this afternoon as there isn’t much else to do.
Accommodation: Hotel Moon Light, Ghorepani
Day 3: We woke up at 4am, left at 4:30am to catch the sunrise at Poonhill, which was a 45minute moderate hike uphill. Fortunately, the weather had improved significantly and the sunrise and panoramic views were incredible (see photo). At 6:15am we descended back to our tea house for breakfast at 7am, we left around 8am for the longest day of trekking. This was 4hrs to the lunch stop, xxxx, then an additional hour to Tadapani following 3hrs downhill to Ghandruk where we stayed the night. Accommodation was similarly basic but all it needed to be including an en-suite with a proper toilet.
Accommodation: Meshrom Guest House, Ghandruk
Day 4: We left around 8am for a 4hr downhill trek back to Nayapool, where we had lunch and met our taxi driver for the 1.5hr journey back to our hotel in Pokhara.
Throughout, our guide, Dadhi, was very organised, ensuring everything ran really smoothly, I.e. checking into rooms, ordering food etc. He was very friendly and a good addition to our trek. We would have preferred him to be a little more talkative and give us a bit more informative regarding our locality. A lot of the time we had to ask questions to learn things, information was not as forthcoming as we would have liked, but the responses to our questions were very interesting and informative. It is clear that Dadhi is a very experienced guide, as you would expect seeing as he has done this for 24 years.
Prior to our trek we were advised on a suggested packing list, however this did not include some items we subsequently found important. We suggest taking a fully charged battery pack to cover you for the duration (we had no electricity in most tea houses due to power outages relating to the weather), head torch/phone torch for the morning hike up poon hill/in rooms, toilet paper (there is none),
Do not rely on mobile data or Wi-Fi during this trek as it is temperamental and unreliable.
Overall, we had a brilliant 4 days with a nice variety of weather, views and terrains. We would highly recommend this short trek to others. It is possible to do this yourselves quite easily without a guide, as footpaths are very clear and obvious. However, we are glad we booked with Nepal Mountain Club because it was completely hassle free, giving us more time to enjoy our surroundings at the time and focus on planning other elements of our RTW trip.