MEANWHILE, TODD has not been idle as he waits out his banishment. In a November e-mail to Outside, he wrote that while he personally has been banned from Nepal, his company, Himalayan Guides, "has not been banned from operating on Everest [in spring 2001], and any suggestion that it has in your magazine will bring down my infamous wrath. In fact, I may chase you and pull your shirt, so watch out." All jest aside, the immediate impact of the ruling seems clear: This year, he says, he'll only have four or five clients going to Everest.

In January, after weeks of e-mail appeals, Todd agreed to a telephone interview with Outside from Edinburgh. After discussing the Jones scrap, he addressed the Sunday Times article on Michael Matthews's death and its analysis of the possibility that Todd's oxygen kits might have contributed to the climber's demise. Todd dismissed the story as "absolute nonsense" and said that the young mountaineer was climbing too high and too slowly, too late in the day. "He was told by five or six people, including one of my clients and [that client's] Sherpa, 'Hey man, you've gotta turn around and go down,'" says Todd. It also must be said that while cranky oxygen gear might contribute to a climber's physical and mental instability, so might bad weather, fatigue, and the inexperience of a 22-year-old options trader pushing his limits at 29,000 feet.

Todd says his equipment is as reliable as anyone's. Tell that to the Woodmansees, who believe that, were it not for Todd's oxygen, they would have made the summit.

Of course, even some of Todd's critics acknowledge that self-reliance comes with its own price, even while arguing that Himalayan Guides sometimes makes that price too high. "We knew what we were getting when we signed up," says Kristy Woodmansee. "We didn't need our hands held. But we did expect to get oxygen. And we didn't."

We knew what we were getting. Henry Todd's clients use the phrase often. Many of them take pride in using his services; his hands-off approach suits their desire to retain risk and personal responsibility as qualities integral to mountaineering. In the sponsorship and media circus that is Mount Everest in the early 21st century, perhaps the Nepalese government is misguided—perhaps Henry Todd is just what the Himalayas need.

Meanwhile, Todd's business has continued apace. A few weeks after Nepal banned him, he announced an expedition to Pakistan's K2 in 2002. His minimum requirement: having summited two 8,000-meter peaks. The book closed on 12 clients in less than a week. Which is to say, there is one law that Henry Todd has always respected: the law of supply and demand. "I have two words to say about Henry Todd," an American Everest-expedition leader told me. "Caveat emptor."   

Contributing editor Bruce Barcott wrote about religious environmentalists and Iditarod champ Doug Swingley in the March issue.