Ghorepani

Ghorepani sits at 2,874m amid Nepal's most extensive rhododendron forest (in bloom March-April), and is the overnight base the vast majority of trekkers use for the pre-dawn climb to Poon Hill. The village itself is a cluster of teahouses serving both the Poon Hill side-trip and trekkers continuing on toward Annapurna Base Camp via Tadapani.

The name means horse water: this was a watering stop on the mule trains between the Kali Gandaki and Pokhara long before trekkers came. The village splits into a lower and an upper part, and lodges in the upper cluster shorten the pre dawn walk to Poon Hill, which takes forty five minutes to an hour. In high season several hundred people stand on that summit at sunrise, so an early start counts. Nights are cold and rooms unheated.