Altitudes, seasons and the handful of things in each place that are genuinely worth your morning.
Dal Lake wakes at 5am: vegetable sellers paddle between the lotus beds, samovars hiss on the houseboat decks, and the Zabarwan hills turn copper.
Asia's highest gondola drops you at 3,980 m on Apharwat. In winter it is legendary powder; in summer it is a green bowl ringed by pine and cloud.
The Lidder roars through deodar forest. Ride up to Baisaran, camp at Aru, and eat trout you watched come out of the river an hour earlier.
The gateway to the Great Lakes trek. Thajiwas glacier sits an hour's walk away and Gujjar shepherds still move their herds over Zoji La every summer.
For three weeks each autumn the plateau turns violet. Families harvest before sunrise, then sort stigmas by hand on the floor of the family room.
1.7 million bulbs on the slope between the Zabarwan hills and Dal Lake, open for barely three weeks before the almond blossom takes over.