Cushion plants are those low, dense clusters you see hugging the ground in the alpine meadows, and Saussurea gnaphalodes is a rare, woolly high-altitude aster found there. But baba, as a budget trekker, my real memory is of simply struggling to breathe at that altitude, squinting to spot these wonders from the marked path, because going off-trail to examine them closely was never an option for us. We cherished them as part of the valley's gorgeous carpet, not as botanical specimens. Our joy was in having reached there at all, with borrowed gear and packed lunches, not in precise identification.
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