John Tyson

1928 - 2014

John Baird Tyson, OBE, led three exploratory mountaineering expeditions to the Kanjiroba region of west Nepal (1961, 1964 & 1969) and explored the Api Region on the Nepal/Tibet border with W.H. Murray in 1953. He worked with Eric Shipton at the first Outward Bound School in Eskdale and was headmaster of schools in Bhutan and Nepal. He took part in countless climbing parties in the Alps and was a friend and climbing partner to many leading British mountaineers of the post-war decades.
Mountaineer and explorer, Tyson concentrated on the forbidding 22,600 ft Mount Kanjiroba and other remote areas of Nepal. He was determined to map, explore and document the Himalayas and the surrounding mountain ranges and its flora and fauna. Surviving avalanches, lightning strikes and a spell living on wild honey, Tyson became one of the first to survey and map the area, which was among the least explored parts of Nepal. Although he attempted Kanjiroba three times he never reached its summit.
His earlier maps though proved invaluable to later climbers. In 1970 he received a telegram from a Japanese team which, using his map to unravel its secrets, had succeeded in reaching the summit of Mt Kanjiroba. It read simply: "With your permission, we have climbed your mountain."
During the Alpine Clubs centenary at Zermatt (5th September 1957) Tyson along with Sir John Hunt, George Band and Christopher Brasher made a guideless ascent of the long and difficult Junggrat on the Breithorn.
Tyson was awarded the OBE in 1989.

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