If you spend a spring or an autumn week in Naggar, sooner or later you will hear them before you see them: a rolling clatter of bells coming down the road, then a slow river of several hundred sheep and goats parting around your car, and behind them a man in a heavy woollen coat with a black rope wound many times round his waist. These are the Gaddis, and they have been walking these mountains for centuries.
Who are the Gaddis?
The Gaddis are a pastoral community whose heartland is Bharmour in Chamba district and the Kangra valley below the Dhauladhar, with smaller settled pockets in Mandi and Kullu. Most Gaddi families keep a house and a patch of land in the valley and combine farming with herding — they are semi-nomadic rather than truly nomadic. Their dress is unmistakable: the chola, a loose off-white woollen coat, cinched with the dora, a long black woollen cord wrapped dozens of times around the waist, which doubles as a rope and a pocket.
Transhumance: a year in two halves
The practice of moving livestock between seasonal pastures is called transhumance, and the Gaddi calendar turns on it.
- Late spring (April–May): flocks leave the warm lower valleys and begin climbing, crossing high passes towards the alpine meadows.
- Summer: the animals graze the thatch — the high grazing grounds above the treeline — where the grass is at its richest and the flies are fewest.
- September–October: the descent begins, timed carefully to stay ahead of the first heavy snows on the passes.
The routes are inherited. A shepherd walks the trail his grandfather walked, knows which nala is safe to cross in which week, and which meadow his family has grazing rights over.
The Kullu connection
Kullu sits on the edge of this world rather than at its centre, but the links run deep. Historically, families from Jagatsukh took their herds over the ranges into Lahaul for the summer and paid tirni, a grazing tax, to the thakurs there. Further west, in Kangra, Gaddi flocks were traditionally folded onto farmers' fallow fields after harvest — manure for the soil in exchange for grazing, one of the neatest bargains in Himalayan agriculture.
Where you'll meet them near Naggar
The trail to the Chandrakhani Pass above Rumsu, the Lama Dugh meadow, the approaches to Bhrigu Lake and Hampta — all of these are summer grazing country. You will also simply meet flocks on the valley road between Patlikuhl and Naggar in migration season. A few things worth knowing:
- Stop your vehicle and let the flock pass. Do not honk.
- Gaddi sheepdogs are working animals guarding livestock. Give them room and don't approach the flock.
- Ask before photographing people. Most shepherds are gracious about it; a few are not, and both answers deserve respect.
- If you're offered tea at a shepherd's camp, it is a real invitation. Accept it, and don't leave rubbish behind.
Ghar in the Hills is a homestay right in Naggar village, and from late April you can often watch the flocks moving up the valley from the terrace — book your stay if you'd like a front-row seat.
A way of life under pressure
Grazing land is shrinking as orchards expand and roads cut through migration corridors, and younger Gaddis increasingly take jobs in towns rather than inherit a flock. Recent research on the community documents exactly this shift. Travellers can't reverse it, but paying attention — and being courteous on the road — costs nothing.
Come in May or late September if you want to see the migration at its fullest, and plan a slow week rather than a rushed weekend. Get in touch with us in Naggar and we'll tell you which trails the flocks are on.