John Tyson MC OBE

John Tyson, who has died aged 85, was a modest English schoolmaster who made it his personal mission to map the Kanjiroba Himal, a remote group of mountain peaks in north-west Nepal — among the most rugged and forbidding in the Himalayas.


The topography of the region features several enormous and highly complex mountain ranges, surrounded and divided by steep-sided river gorges. While the lower hillsides suffer landslides from monsoon rain all summer, the upper hillsides are prone to avalanches all winter.


A detailed topographical mapping of Nepal had been carried out in the 1920s, but the Kanjiroba Himal was one of the regions left blank. While Tyson did much to rectify that omission, it remains the least explored part of Nepal to this day.





[SIZE=1.4em]Tyson’s quest began in 1961 when he led the first of several small surveying missions to the region, with the aim of mapping the principal mountain ranges and locating, and if possible climbing, the highest summit, Mount Kanjiroba (22,580ft). The expedition succeeded in making the first ascents of several 20,000ft peaks which gave excellent views for map-making, but they were unable to locate a viable route on to the Kanjiroba Himal along the sheer-sided scree-covered gorge of the Jagdula river.[/SIZE]


[SIZE=1.4em]In 1964 he led another expedition via the Langu Khola, the gorge of the Langu river which, after rising in the gentle uplands of Dolpo, thunders between sheer walls through the Kanjiroba massif. As Tyson explained in an article in Alpine Journal in 1970, the route could only be used in winter when the Langu dwindled sufficiently to enable a route to be forced along its shore. Only then could trees be felled to make temporary bridges, across which heavily-laden porters would have to maintain their balance above the deadly, churning waters. Another route along the gorge, “a shikari [hunting] track with exposed rock-pitches high on the cliff side”, was almost impossible for travellers with loads.[/SIZE]

After forcing the first sections of the Langu gorge with flimsy bridges, the expedition members found themselves only a dozen miles from Mount Kanjiroba and, though supplies and time were beginning to run out, they pressed on, hoping to make an attempt on the summit: “A southern tributary valley [the Pukchang Khola] joined the Langu at this point, aligned only a little to the west of south, dark and narrow, thickly forested on both sides of the stream except when vertical rock walls thousands of feet high blocked out the daylight,” Tyson recalled. “Exchanging the nervous tensions of the swift Langu current for the exasperations of steep jungle, we cut a way which opened out through birch woods and moorlands of azalea and junipers, gaining height rapidly to the tongues of northern glaciers.”
Eventually they reached a point from where they could see the two highest summits of the Kanjiroba Himal shining in the sunlight. But “from our own peak, Bhulu Lhasa, a little over 20,000ft, we now saw that the main peaks were quite inaccessible and that almost at our feet was the gorge we should have taken, leading northwards to the Langu, buried deep in the valley system.”
[SIZE=1.4em]In 1963 the Royal Geographical Society recognised Tyson’s work with the Ness Award; and three years later the results of his surveying — a map of the Kanjiroba Himal and the adjacent area in the Karnali region — was published in the Geographical Journal. But in the meantime the government of Nepal had imposed a ban on climbing.[/SIZE]
Following the lifting of the ban in 1969, Tyson led a further expedition to explore the northern side of the Kanjiroba Himal, but had to abandon attempts on the north-west and north-east ridges as too dangerous. The expedition came close to disaster when, climbing a smooth rocky rib above a lateral moraine, they looked up to see a huge avalanche thundering towards a gully beside them. The expedition’s Sherpas were partly protected by a large overhanging rock, “but the rest of us were knocked breathless by the air-pressure and blinded by flying snow which drove straight through clothing to the skin”. Tyson’s rucksack was carried away, though he managed to recover many of the lighter essentials, such as his sleeping bag, in the debris 1,000ft below.

Ultimately the expedition opted to try the technically easier south-east ridge, but the monsoon arrived early, and by the time they set off the ridge was creaking and groaning as warm winds began to sap the snow. Forced to turn back before making a final assault, Tyson and his companions ran out of food and had to live partially on wild honey as they waited for porters to arrive to help them out of the Langu gorge. By this time the river was in spate, and for eight miles they had to edge their way across narrow cliffs hundreds of feet above the water.
As they emerged from the gorge, the Sherpas prepared a puja (act of worship) at a shrine to the god who controls the water sprites of the Langu. “But all were equally relieved to be alive after more than a fair share of luck,” Tyson wrote.
Others would come and reach the highest point, he reflected, “but will not perhaps experience to the full the excitement of exploring unknown valleys, of piecing the map together, and travelling with such companions as I have had.” In 1970 he was delighted to receive a telegram from a Japanese team which, using his map, had succeeded in reaching the summit of Mt Kanjiroba. It read simply: “With your permission, we have climbed your mountain.
John Baird Tyson was born at Partick, Scotland, on April 7 1928 and brought up in London, where his father was Surmaster (deputy headmaster) of St Paul’s School. He acquired a passion for climbing during family holidays in Scotland, France and Switzerland.
After Rugby School, Tyson did National Service as a second lieutenant in the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, from 1947 to 1949, mostly on attachment to the Seaforth Highlanders in Malaya during the early months of the Emergency. His platoon proved among the most effective of that period in ambushing communist guerrillas, and in 1949 he was awarded an MC — a rare accolade for a National Service officer — for his courage and leadership during patrols in the Segamat district. On two occasions he had placed himself in the centre of the front line as his platoon pursued retreating guerrillas, continuing to lead the advance despite coming under enemy fire. In seven months his platoon accounted for 13 rebels, nine killed and four wounded."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10695779/John-Tyson-obituary.html