Mountain communities in the Indian Himalayas are facing unprecedented climate uncertainty, with increasingly erratic rainfall, rising temperatures, and natural resource degradation that threaten their agrarian systems. This paper examines how smallholder households in Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand perceive, experience, and respond to these environmental changes, drawing on qualitative data from ten villages across two agro-ecological zones. It argues that while climatic variability is widely observed and acknowledged, the capacity to adapt is deeply stratified along the lines of gender, social group, and class. The analysis reveals a pronounced shift in cropping patterns marked by the abandonment of traditional millets and cereals and a rise in input-sensitive horticulture and cash crops. However, access to these adaptive strategies is uneven. Households from socially dominant groups are more likely to benefit from agricultural extension services and market linkages, while those from historically marginalised communities often face infrastructural neglect and exclusion from institutional support. Women, particularly from marginalised backgrounds, bear a disproportionate burden in managing food, water, and fodder, yet remain largely invisible in policy and development discourses. By foregrounding the lived experiences of marginalised farmers, local ecological knowledge, and structural barriers, this paper advances a critical understanding of climate adaptation as a relational and political process. It emphasises that resilience is not a universal state but a differentiated outcome shaped by histories of marginalisation and unequal entitlements. It calls for inclusive climate governance to support adaptive strategies that are ecologically and socially just.