Everest Legend Henry Todd Had Many Friends—and a Few Enemies

Every January, we share a tribute to members of our community who we lost last year. Some were legends, others were pillars of their community, all were climbers. Read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2025 here.

Henry Todd, 80, November 3

Pirate. Swindler. Adventurer. Kingpin. Bamboozler. Entrepreneur. Mountaineer. Mayor of Base Camp. Toddfather. Henry Todd has been called a lot of things.

“If Henry liked you, he really did,” wrote Tom Clowes in an email to Climbing in December 2025, the night before he set off to row across the Atlantic for The World’s Toughest Row. “If he didn’t like you, he would make your life hell.”

Clowes is a great example of the kind of person Todd kept company with: an international adventurer for decades, with zero chance of slowing down. They met in Nepal in 1999 when Clowes was preparing to climb Ama Dablam. Clowes couldn’t afford high altitude boots, so Todd loaned him a pair. Each boot was a different size, so Clowes had to stuff socks down into them to make them fit. Clowes didn’t summit that year, so Todd introduced him to his friend, the late Spanish mountaineer Iñaki Ochoa de Olza, with whom Clowes summited Ama Dablam the following year.

In 2002, Todd and Clowes made a summit attempt on Aconcagua but were thwarted by the weather. So they sat around in their tent, playing Monopoly. “Henry loved Monopoly. He did not like losing, but we always had a laugh,” Clowes said. Along with Clowes and de Olza, Todd collected many eccentric friends like carabiners and hung them on the loops of his life.

Henry Todd was born on March 3, 1945, in Broughty Ferry, Scotland. His family moved to Singapore for 14 years before returning home to Dundee, Scotland, where Todd attended school. Todd moved to Cambridge for university, where he befriended Syd Barrett and David Gilmour, who later played in Pink Floyd. Neither Barrett, Gilmour, nor Todd graduated.

While he was in Cambridge, Todd discovered LSD. He experimented heavily with the drug in the sixties before later getting involved in manufacturing and sales. Throughout the late sixties, Todd was arrested multiple times for possession, theft, and fraud, and even spent some time in jail.

In the seventies, Todd went from helping a local drug gang sell and distribute LSD to running his own operation out of his home near London. In the mid-seventies, Todd reportedly produced 90% of the acid in Britain, which he shipped worldwide.

The kingpin lifestyle suited Todd, and somewhere in between lavish dinners, chateaus, fast cars, and expensive travels, Todd fell in love with rock climbing. He began climbing in Scotland at the age of 13, but started traveling for climbing once the drug money poured in. He climbed in Switzerland, the sea cliffs of north Wales, and, according to the book “Operation Julie,” by Lyn Ebenezer, he sent a friend to scout out Yosemite for a possible climbing trip in 1976. At that point, Todd’s movements were being watched by Scotland Yard, and that friend was followed all the way to the Valley.

In 1977, Todd’s walls came crashing down. His home was part of a series of raids that led to the largest drug crackdown in Britain’s history. From Todd’s home alone, the police came away with over $200,000 in cash and enough LSD to make 2.5 million hits of acid. Reportedly, during the raid, the carpet was so soaked in liquid LSD that three officers got high and required hospitalization.

Todd pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess LSD and aiding and abetting its possession by others and spent seven years in prison. Immediately upon his release in 1985, he ran straight to the Himalayas.

In 1988, Todd attempted Annapurna on a team led by Jerzy Kukuczka, and in 1989, he climbed Everest for the first time. It left a huge impression on him, not because he summited (he didn’t), but because he couldn’t stand how mismanaged and difficult that Everest expedition was. Todd told Outside in 2001 that it was at that point he decided he would not be going on any more expeditions unless he was the team leader.

In the early nineties, Todd began organizing expeditions with friends, finally founding his own guide business, Himalayan Guides, which went on its first Everest expedition in 1995. It was a massive success with eight members of his team summiting via the North Ridge.

In May of 1996, when the Everest Disaster struck, Todd was at Base Camp, and his good friend, mountaineer and author, Brigitte Muir was on the South Col. Muir later recorded a rare interview with Todd about their experience that season. “I loved our catch-ups over the years,” Muir wrote to Climbing from Australia. “I heard the ins and outs of all the controversies, simply because they involved people we both knew. He shared his life’s personal dilemmas, the funny moments, and the sad and disappointing ones. I am glad to have a little bit of Henry, frozen in time.”

Todd spent a great deal of time at Everest Base Camp, always involved in his expeditions. Here, he earned the nicknames “Toddfather” and “Mayor of Base Camp.”

In 1999, Todd met with controversy again when he physically attacked a reporter for the Discovery Channel at Everest Base Camp who said that Todd was essentially an “Everest caterer” due to never summiting. Todd said he only pushed him. The reporter said that the 6 ‘3 Scotsman “pummeled him and punched him in the face” and then kicked him out of camp. Then the reporter flew to Kathmandu and reported it to the police.

Many witnesses came together to say that what Todd said was true—that he only pushed the reporter. Nevertheless, Nepal’s Ministry of Culture banned Todd from Nepal until 2002.

In 2006, Todd and two others were charged with manslaughter in the death of a 22-year-old British climber while descending from the summit of Everest. Todd had supplied him with oxygen cylinders, which the climber’s family accused of being faulty. The judge dismissed the case in 2006, citing that “there was not one scrap of worthwhile evidence” against Todd’s oxygen cylinders.

Todd summited many peaks throughout his mountaineering career, including Cho Oyu, Manaslu, Pumori, and Ama Dablam. He never got higher than 27,000 feet on Everest, and he only climbed that high to rescue a client who was suffering from high-altitude sickness. In 30 years, Todd organized 70 Himalayan expeditions, including 45 over 8,000 meters.

On November 3, 2025, Todd passed away after suffering a stroke in Kathmandu. He was 80 years old. He is survived by his daughter, Matti Todd, who released the following statement on social media: “It is with great sadness that we have to announce the passing of my dad Henry Todd, aged 80, on 2 November 2025, in Kathmandu, Nepal. Henry (or ‘The Toddfather’) was a remarkable mountain guide, a loving father and grandfather, and a dear friend to many. He survived plane crashes, avalanches, and earthquakes – he seemed indestructible. His spirit and dedication to the mountains and the people around him will never be forgotten.”

“We all loved Henry,” Brigitte Muir told Climbing. “Sherpas and Westerners alike. Even if he was bloody in your face at times. I guess that is what made him interesting. He was totally Henry.”

Read the full tribute to Climbers We Lost in 2025 here.

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