“Colonel” Jimmy Roberts Father of Nepal's adventure tourism

By Bhushita Vasistha

Jimmy started trekking in Nepal when many did not even understand what the word “trekking” meant. “The terms trek and trekking etc, which are very commonly used and understood now, were novel to some in 1964, I think,” he mentioned in his article.

Born on September 21, 1916, to Henry and Helen Roberts, Jimmy grew up in British  India. His father was headmaster of a school in Gujarat and spent his early years in India. As a toddler, he enjoyed running through the hills and dales of Garhwal. By the late 1930s, he had already become an ardent mountaineer.

Later, he went to the King's School in Canterbury and the Royal Military College in Sandhurst.

Coming back to India in 1936, Jimmy joined the 1st Battalion the East Yorkshire Regiment in India. A year later in November 1937, he was appointed to the 1st Gurkha Rifles. Jimmy saw the transfer as yet another opportunity get closer to the mountains.

“I came out to India and joined the old British Indian Army at the end of 1936. I joined the Indian Army partly because I was unqualified for any more intellectual enjoyment, but mainly because I wanted to climb in the Himalaya — not just one expedition but a whole lifetime of mountaineering and exploration. It worked,” he answered to one  journalist.

After serving in Burma, Japan, India, Singapore, among other countries, for several years, Jimmy came to Nepal in 1958 as a military attaché and an acting Lieutenant Colonel. His tour was remarkable for two reasons. The first was the Nepali king's visit to the United Kingdom in October 1960. Jimmy accompanied the Royal party and was awarded the Order of the Gorkha Dakshin Bahu (Third Class) for his services. The second was Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's visit to Nepal in February 1961, when he was made MVO (Fourth Class, later converted to LVO), for his work in helping with the arrangements, and accompanying the Queen on her visit to Pokhara.

Rather incredibly, when he first came to Nepal, Pokhara was extended a greater fascination than Lhasa, but was certainly less known. During the late Forties, Jimmy could visit Kathmandu by invitations only, either from the Rana rulers or the British Embassy. The rest of the kingdom was firmly closed to foreigners. Therefore, it took him fourteen years before he could finally reside in Nepal.

“It is perhaps because of this long wait, even today I've never quite lost my own sense of wonder and privilege of being allowed inside Nepal at all,” Jimmy is reported to have said.

A year after the Queen's visit, he retired in May 1962 with the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and after handing his responsibility of military attaché over to Charles Wylie in October 1961.

By then, he had already made up his mind to settle in Nepal, Pokhara in particular. His passion for the Nepali mountains was good enough to inspire him to open the first ever trekking agency in Nepal — “Mountain Travel Nepal”. The trekking agency today remains the major successful operator in the field, which has grown to some three hundred fifty trekking agencies which together make a big contribution to Nepal's economy.

In the beginning, the business did not go that well. In fact, it was very modest. His first client came to do an Everest trek in the early spring of 1965. A year or two later, the news was in circulation that there were “Three American grandmothers, a more sporting trio of enthusiastic and appreciative ladies,” Jimmy  handled.

As a young man, he climbed in the Annapurnas, the Alps, Norway and Austria. In 1938, he joined the Masherbrum Expedition, when he first encountered the horrors of helping to bandage blackened stumps of fingers lost to frostbite. After the war, he spent almost all of his leaves to climb. During those years, he climbed in the Karakoram, and once spending two months with Charles Wylie climbing many peaks in the Alps. In 1950, he climbed the Annapurna Massif with Tilman and his crew.

He was on the Himalayan Committee's shortlist to lead the 1953 Everest Expedition, and although not chosen, he willingly organized the collection and carriage — by seventy porters — of the delayed supply of the oxygen cylinders and associated equipment from Kathmandu to the base camp. When the team arrived back, John Hunt invited him to join the expedition, but he declined.

It was then he made the first climb to “Mera”, a 21,000-feet mountain. In November 1954, he made another first ascent of Putha Himchuli, 23,750-feet-high mountain, and later, he led the expedition which got off to 150 feet below the summit of Machhapuchhre.

By the Sixties, he had already become a famed mountaineer, and his knowledge of Nepal's hills had almost become legendary. In 1960, he also let the British, Indian, and Nepalese Services Expedition which climbed Annapurna II. In 1967, the Royal Geographic Society awarded him with its Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his services to Himalayan explorations. For some years, he also worked as a local secretary of the Himalayan Club.

Had luck favored him, he would have led the first successful Everest expedition in 1953. Instead, John Hunt got the chance to lead Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa. However, recalling his young days, unregretful, Jimmy said, “Even if the highest places were denied me, I have no regrets. Fate dealt me a number of good cards, and if I didn't always play them properly, that was my fault.”

What he never ever regretted in his life, however, was the pristine views of the Pokhara Valley he chanced upon from a nearby hill when returning from an expedition in the mid-western Nepal Himalaya. It was when Jimmy Roberts decided to make the town of Pokhara his lifelong home, and he stuck to his dream to his last breath.

His latter days, though, were full of agonies. He suffered from painful arthritis, had hip operations, and had a host of other afflictions — high prices he paid for his years of trekking and climbing and exploring new adventure routes in Nepal — until he passed away on November 1, 1997. He chose Buddhist rites for his final passage.

“Colonel” Jimmy Roberts, who always lived according to his convictions, remained a bachelor throughout his life. He is survived by his adopted son Bobby Gurung.

Expression of Tourism

Click here to see news