Basil Goodfellow's 1953 photographs put Mardi Himal on the map for Western climbers. The first ascent came in 1961, up the west flank, but who actually stood on top is still disputed. Behind it all stands Jimmy Roberts, the man who would soon invent commercial trekking in Nepal.
Western mountaineers first took notice of Mardi Himal because of a set of photographs. In 1953, Basil Goodfellow, a British climber and keen mountain photographer, travelled into the Pokhara area and photographed the peak and the south and south-east faces of neighbouring Machhapuchhre. His images drew attention to a summit that had until then been little more than a name on the ridge below the fishtail. Goodfellow was a serious figure in British mountaineering, later President of the British Mountaineering Council, and the Alpine Journal devoted a 1977 article to him as a mountain photographer.
The photographs did their work, but slowly. Eight years passed between the 1953 images and the first recorded ascent in 1961. For the lie of the land Goodfellow was photographing, see our geography and geologypage and the peak's position in the Annapurna massif.
The first ascent of Mardi Himal took place in 1961. That year is the one fact every source agrees on. Who reached the top is where the record splits. Wikipedia credits the first ascent to Basil Goodfellow himself, the same man whose photographs had drawn attention to the peak. Climbing and operator sources tell it differently: they credit Lt. Col. Jimmy Roberts, climbing with two Sherpas via the west flank.
We do not assert one version over the other, because no authoritative source resolves the conflict. Both Goodfellow and Roberts were closely involved in the early exploration of this region, and that overlap is the most likely root of the confusion. Some operator pages add further detail, naming particular Sherpas and a different ridge line, but those accounts contradict the west flank version and are unverified, so we leave them aside. What is reasonably solid is the route: the west flank is the only recorded ascent line on the peak, with a south-west face variation also mentioned. The modern climbing objective is covered on our peak climbing page.
Whatever happened on the summit in 1961, Lt. Col. James Owen Merion Roberts (1916 to 1997) is a giant of Nepalese mountaineering history. A British Army officer, he is widely called the father of trekking in Nepal. He founded Mountain Travel, registered with the Nepalese government in late 1964 and operating from 1965, which is described as the first commercial trekking company in Nepal and indeed in Asia. His first paying trek took six American women toward Everest Base Camp in 1965, and for several years afterward his company was the only one arranging trekking tourism in the country.
Roberts also organised the 1957 expedition to Machhapuchhre, the only recorded attempt on that peak, which we cover on our Machhapuchhre relationship page. Set against that career, his connection to Mardi Himal is one strand among many, but it places the small peak firmly inside the larger story of how Westerners came to know, climb, and eventually walk through this part of the Himalaya.
Mardi Himal is designated a trekking peak by the Nepalese government. In Nepal, the regulated trekking-peak system grew up around the Nepal Mountaineering Association, founded on 1 November 1973, which long administered climbing permits for a set of peaks roughly in the 5,800 to 6,500 m range. In October 2015 the government ended the association's monopoly over those permits and moved the authority to the tourism ministry. Mardi Himal's status as a climbing objective therefore predates, by decades, the walking route most visitors now associate with the name.
That walking route opened only in 2012, making it one of the youngest trails in the Annapurna region. It climbs from Pokhara through Dhampus and Pothana along a high forested ridge toward the base of the peak. A mountain that had been a quiet climbing objective since 1961 became, half a century later, a popular short trek. For the walk itself, see our trek page, and for how the peak got its name, our name and meaning page.
Mardi Himal's climbing history reads very differently from those of the peaks around it. Machhapuchhre (6,993 m), the fishtail just to the north-east, remains officially unclimbed: its only recorded attempt was the 1957 expedition, when Wilfrid Noyce and A.D.M. Cox reached about 6,947 m, within roughly 46 m of the summit, before turning back. Annapurna South (7,219 m) was first climbed on 15 October 1964 by a Kyoto University Alpine Club team. Hiunchuli (6,441 m) waited until October 1971, when an American expedition reached its top.
Set against those neighbours, Mardi Himal, at 5,587 m, was climbed in 1961, earlier than two of its taller companions, yet it carries the least settled record of who actually did it. It is the modest peak with the loud argument, a footnote in the early Annapurna story that still has not been fully written.
Mardi Himal received its first recorded ascent in 1961. The year is consistent across Wikipedia and the climbing and operator sources, so it is the one solid date in the peak's climbing history. Western mountaineers had been aware of the peak since 1953, when photographs taken by Basil Goodfellow first drew attention to it, but eight years passed between that interest and a recorded ascent.
This is genuinely disputed. Wikipedia credits the 1961 first ascent to Basil Goodfellow, the British climber and photographer whose images first publicised the peak. Climbing and operator sources instead credit Lt. Col. Jimmy Roberts, climbing with two Sherpas via the west flank. Both men were central to the early exploration of this corner of the Annapurna region, which likely explains the confusion. We present both accounts and do not assert a single name, because no authoritative source resolves the conflict. If you see a confident single attribution elsewhere, treat it with caution: the primary references simply do not agree.
The only recorded ascent route on Mardi Himal is the west flank, according to the climbing and operator sources. Some pages also mention a south-west face line, and a few name specific Sherpas and a different ridge, but those details conflict with the west flank account and are unverified. For the modern climbing line, see our peak climbing page; the west flank remains the historic reference.
Lt. Col. James Owen Merion Roberts (1916 to 1997) was a British Army officer often called the father of trekking in Nepal. He founded Mountain Travel, registered with the Nepalese government in late 1964 and operating from 1965, which is described as the first commercial trekking company in Nepal and in Asia. His first commercial trek took six American women toward Everest Base Camp in 1965. He had also led the 1957 expedition to neighbouring Machhapuchhre. Whether or not he stood on the summit of Mardi Himal in 1961, his fingerprints are all over the early mountaineering history of this region.
The fishtail peak just north-east of Mardi Himal has only one recorded climbing attempt, the 1957 British expedition led by Jimmy Roberts. Climbers Wilfrid Noyce and A.D.M. Cox reached roughly 6,947 m, within about 46 m of the 6,993 m summit, then stopped. By the prevailing account, King Mahendra had granted permission to climb but forbade setting foot on the summit itself out of respect for the mountain's sacred status, and the climbers honoured that. Nepal later closed Machhapuchhre to climbing entirely. Our Machhapuchhre relationship page covers the two peaks' shared geography.
The walking route to Mardi Himal opened in 2012, making it one of the youngest trails in the Annapurna region. It runs up from Pokhara through Dhampus and Pothana along a high forested ridge of oak, rhododendron, and bamboo, and it is now a popular short trek. The peak itself had been designated a trekking peak by the Nepalese government well before the trail existed, so for decades it was a climbing objective without the teahouse route that defines it today. That gap between the 1961 climb and the 2012 trail is part of what makes the mountain's story unusual.
Among the peaks ringing this part of the Annapurna massif, the climbing histories vary widely. Machhapuchhre (6,993 m) remains officially unclimbed since the 1957 attempt. Annapurna South (7,219 m) was first climbed on 15 October 1964 by a Kyoto University Alpine Club team. Hiunchuli (6,441 m) was first climbed in October 1971 by an American expedition. Mardi Himal, lower at 5,587 m, was climbed in 1961, earlier than two of its taller neighbours but with a far murkier record of who actually did it.
We run small-group trips from Pokhara every Saturday from September to May. We also run private trips any day. A $50 deposit holds your place. Pay the rest on arrival in cash or by card.
