Henry Todd

Henry Barclay Todd (2 March 1945 – 3 November 2025) was a Scottish drug dealer, mountaineer and climbing expedition organiser. He played a central role, during the 1970s, in one of the world's largest LSD manufacturing operations. This drugs ring was broken up by Operation Julie and he was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment, serving seven. and then moved to Cambridgeshire where Todd finished his schooling. and in 1968 he spent six months working for a London firm of insurance brokers. At its peak the group was thought to have been supplying around 90% of the LSD in the UK. The drug ring was the subject of a major police investigation, Operation Julie, and in March 1977 Todd was one of many people arrested. Todd met Solomon at a party in the area in 1970, and agreed to manage the distribution chain for the LSD being produced by Solomon and Kemp. Todd pleaded guilty to conspiring to possess, produce and supply LSD, possession of LSD with intent to supply and conspiring to aid and abet its possession by others. On 9 March 1978, he was sentenced to 13 years' imprisonment. Todd served seven years in jail. The proceeds from drug dealing supported this enthusiasm; a visit to the International Mountaineering School in Switzerland He later made some first ascents in the Himalaya with Woolridge and Yates later joined some of Todd's Himalayan expeditions as a guide, as did Victor Saunders, another acquaintance from Todd's NLMC days.

His first trip to climb in the Himalaya was in 1984 when he travelled to India with a small party from the NLMC to climb in the Mulkila group. The terms of his probation meant that he could only leave the country if he was accompanied by an "officer of the law"

His first mountaineering visit to Nepal, in 1987, involved an unsuccessful attempt to climb Ama Dablam in alpine style with Andy Cave and a small party of others. He returned to the mountain in 1992, as expedition leader, and made a successful ascent by the south-west ridge. In 1988, a year after he first attempted Ama Dablam, Todd was a member of a Polish expedition to the south side of Annapurna. Todd only summited Tarke Kang, a subsidiary peak of on the easterly ridge from Annapurna, but his role in helping rescue Janusz Majer and another climber led to an invitation to join a Polish team on the north side of Everest in 1989.

In 1990, he was back in the Indian Himalaya when he and Mike Woolridge made the first ascent of a new line on Meru Peak. In 1993, he was on Pumori as the leader of an expedition, when eight of fourteen members summited. In 1994, Todd was a member of an expedition led by Ryszard Pawłowski which attempted the west face of Lhotse. Pawłowski was the only person to summit but it was Todd's first experience of Everest's neighbouring peak and over the following 12 years he himself held a permit to lead seven expeditions for Lhotse; Michael Jørgensen, Christine Boskoff and Rob Casserley all summited Lhotse on expeditions organised by Todd.

Todd took part in expeditions to a number of other locations in the years before he embarked on a career as an expedition organiser. Some were far from the Himalaya and included Denali, the Wrangell Mountains, and an unsuccessful attempt to make the first ascent of the SE ridge of Sarmiento in Tierra del Fuego at the end of 1992.

Expedition organiser Todd established the company "Himalayan Guides" to organise commercial climbing expeditions which would provide clients with all of the support and advice they needed when climbing on a selected range of Himalayan peaks.

As expedition manager, Todd provided food, cooks, tents, full oxygen gear, and permits. He also handled the hiring of some Sherpas each season, their services being shared among clients, as were spaces in tents placed at camps higher up the mountain. Many clients would also hire their own dedicated Sherpas and sometimes a professional Guide. Anatoli Boukreev worked for Todd as a mountain guide on the expedition, providing support for other climbers. and all the expedition members reached the summit.

1996 was his first expedition to Cho Oyu; Todd summited on 27 September 1996 without using supplemental oxygen.

2000-2002 Nepal ban In May 2000, Todd was at the Everest Base Camp with a team that included Finn-Olaf Jones, an American who was filming a climbing program for the Discovery Channel's Travel Channel, posting dispatches from Base Camp as well as attempting to climb Everest. In the early stages of the expedition Jones was involved in a physical altercation with another climber at Base Camp and then, a week or two later, a fight broke out between Todd and Jones. There are conflicting reports about the details of the Todd/Jones interaction but the outcome was that Jones left Base Camp and, on 19 May, two days after the incident, he filed charges against Todd with the Nepalese police. An investigation was carried out and on 6 November the Nepali Culture Ministry announced that Todd "had been found guilty of violating the Tourism Act and was forbidden from entering the country until 2002".

As a result, Todd shifted his operations to Pakistan, but in between trips did an expedition to Cho Oyu in September 2001; the Base Camp normally used for attempts on that mountain's north-west ridge is in Chinese territory and although clients would normally access it from Nepal, via the Friendship Bridge near Kodari, it could also be accessed through China. He also had permits for spring 2002 to climb on the south (Nepalese) side of Everest and on Lhotse (also approached from the Everest Base Camp). Todd claimed that while he personally had been banned from Nepal, the ban did not prevent his company from operating on Everest;

The ban ended on 1 June 2002 In due course the Sagarmāthā Pollution Control Committee trained local Sherpas to do the 'fix', in a way that satisfied the commercial operators, but even by the late 1990s when the Sherpa 'icefall doctors' had completely taken on the task it was Todd who supplied the narrow aluminium ladders which weren't locally available.

In 1996, Todd arranged an advance purchase agreement with Poisk which gave him the rights as their exclusive distributor for Everest that year. Todd encountered a drawback of that arrangement when he had to leave Base Camp during the expedition to fly back to Kathmandu so he could ensure a smooth passage through customs for extra cylinders.

When Poisk introduced refillable cylinders there was an incentive to return empty bottles (which also helped to address the accumulation of empty cylinders on the mountain, particularly at the South Col). Whilst Poisk positioned themselves as the sole refiller, the fact that they could be refilled led to a range of outfits developing systems for refilling empty oxygen bottles (at a lower price). That led to speculation about the quality and reliability of the oxygen supplied, particularly as the associated regulators would sometimes freeze at high altitudes.