A day of movement, if not an early start. 

The plan to take the local bus up through the tunnel into Lahaul, jump off at Sissu and catch a later bus back down to Vashisht.

And then beyond my northern point of the Kullu valley, the road rising in zig zags above the river, tree clad valleys transforming from conifer to deciduous, shops and tea stalls accompanying straights and corners. 

And the the maw of the Atal tunnel, 9km cut into the living rock of the Rohtang La, Kullu to Lahaul, the world above and beyond in transformation.

At the exit a familiar congestion of traffic parked around stalls, passing, rising as the valley opens up to our left, copses of trees set beneath bare mountain slopes. A sense of scale, the self a small creature scurrying briefly through this transforming landscape, unnoticed in this place defined by geological time. 
Further up the valley raised houses above gardens guarded by drystane dukes; memories of Orchid island found up here in the mountains. 
In Sissu another iteration of guesthouses rising, a village in transition, hotels and dhabas, a huge car park beneath on the riverside. 
A waterfall above the river, a sudden peak beyond as the clouds scatter, a first glimpse of this landscape unfurled as river and road flow towards the valleys beyond.