Srinagar, June 1 -- It was the kind of snow people talk about in old stories - sudden, silent, and deeply wrong.

In the last week of May, just as shepherds began their annual journey to the upper pastures of Kashmir, the skies turned white.

In Margan, Warwan, Gurez, Peer ki Gali, and the slopes above Aharbal, snow blanketed the trails meant for summer migration.

Maize fields, just days away from sprouting, were buried. Sheep and goats froze where they stood. Tents tore. Fires sputtered.

And families, used to rough terrain and long winters, found themselves fighting winter in the wrong season.

"We were moving up with the herds," said Bashir Ahmad, a Gujjar herder from Kulgam. "Then it started snowing. We thought it would stop. It didn...