Annapurna
Authors: Maurice Herzog
Contents
IV: The East Dhaulagiri Glacier
XVIII: Through the Paddy Fields
XX: There are Other Annapurnas
About the Book
In 1950, no mountain higher than 8,000 meters had ever been climbed. Maurice Herzog and other members of the French Alpine Club resolved to try. This is the enthralling story of the first conquest of Annapurna and the harrowing descent. With breathtaking courage and grit manifest on every page,
Annapurna
is one of the greatest adventure stories ever told.
As well as an introduction by Joe Simpson, this new edition includes 16 pages of photographs, which provide a remarkable visual record of this legendary expedition.
About the Author
The distinguished French mountaineer Maurice Herzog was leader of the 1950 expedition to Annapurna. He was one of the two climbers to reach the summit.
List of Illustrations
First Section
1
. AT TANSING, APRIL 11TH, 1950
Standing, left to right
: LACHENAL, COUZY, SCHATZ, OUDOT, TERRAY, HERZOG, NOYELLE, AND THE SHERPAS, PANSY, SARKI, AJEEBA, AILA, DAWATHONDUP
Sitting:
RÉBUFFAT, ICHAC, AND THE SHERPAS, PHUTHARKAY, ANGTHARKAY AND ANGDAWA
2
. ANGTHARKAY PAYS OFF THE PORTERS WHILE HERZOG, SCHATZ, TERRAY, NOYELLE AND, BEHIND HIM, LACHENAL, LOOK ON
3
. TUKUCHA, HEADQUARTERS OF THE EXPEDITION
4
. HOUSES IN TUKUCHA
5
. DHAULAGIRI AND TUKUCHA PEAK FROM THE EAST
6
. FIRST RECONNAISSANCE IN THE DAMBUSH KHOLA, NORTH-EAST OF DHAULAGIRI
7
. CAMP HIGH UP THE VALLEY OF THE DAMBUSH KHOLA: THE NILGIRIS IN THE BACKGROUND
8
. 15,000 FEET UP, ABOVE THE DAMBUSH KHOLA, HERZOG CATCHES SIGHT OF ANNAPURNA, BARELY VISIBLE IN THE CLOUDS BEHIND THE NILGIRIS, ON THE RIGHT OF THE PHOTOGRAPH
9
. THE GREAT ICE LAKE ON THE TILICHO PASS, WITH GANGA PURNA IN THE BACKGROUND
10
. VILLAGE AND VALLEY OF MANANGBHOT
11
. CHAHAR, 12,000 FEET, WHERE PILGRIMS MAKE THEIR LAST HALT BEFORE ARRIVING AT THE SACRED SPRINGS OF MUKTINATH
12
. ANNAPURNA, SHOWING THE ICE CLIFFS OF THE SICKLE GLACIER AND THE COULOIR BY WHICH HERZOG AND LACHENAL FINALLY REACHED THE SUMMIT. THE AVALANCHE HIDES CAMP II
Second Section
13
. HERZOG ON THE NORTH-WEST SPUR OF ANNAPURNA
14
. EVENING AT CAMP I
15
. SHERPAS AT CAMP II WITH THE CAULIFLOWER RIDGE IN THE BACKGROUND
16
. CAMP III AMONG THE SERACS
17
. ON THE WAY TO CAMP III. THIS PHOTOGRAPH CONVEYS MANY OF THE DIFFICULTIES THE PARTY HAD TO CONTEND WITH ON THE ASSAULT. THE CLIMBERS ARE KNEE-DEEP IN NEW SNOW, NOT YET CONSOLIDATED AND THREATENING TO AVALANCHE; WHEN THEY REACH THE ICE-WALLS THE EXHAUSTING WORK OF STEP-CUTTING WILL BEGIN, AND THE SUN BEATS DOWN MERCILESSLY
18
. A SHERPA CROSSING THE ICE SLOPE BELOW CAMP IVA AT ABOUT 23,000 FEET
19
. NORTH FACE OF ANNAPURNA, SEEN FROM THE BUTTRESSES OF THE GREAT BARRIER
20
.
Inset
FACSIMILE OF HERZOG’S MESSAGE ANNOUNCING THE DECISION TO ATTACK ANNAPURNA BY THE NORTH GLACIER AND GIVING ALL MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION THEIR ORDERS
21
. THE SNOW-BLINDED TERRAY RETURNING TO CAMP II SUPPORTED BY ANGTHARKAY, WITH SCHATZ HOLDING THE ROPE. BEHIND THEM COMES LACHENAL, HELPED BY TWO SHERPAS, AND HIGHER UP ARE COUZY AND A SHERPA
22
. AJEEBA CARRYING HERZOG ACROSS THE FLOODED MIRISTI KHOLA
23
. RÉBUFFAT BEING TAKEN DOWN ON A SLEDGE FROM CAMP II BY SCHATZ AND FOUR SHERPAS
24
. BETWEEN CAMP I AND BASE CAMP SARKI (LEFT) HELPS THE PORTER WHO IS CARRYING HERZOG IN THE CACOLET
25
. THE RETURN BY THE MIRISTI KHOLA IN THE MONSOON
26
. THROUGH THE PADDY FIELDS
List of Maps
1
. Central Nepal
2
. The Ridges of Dhaulagiri
3
. The Annapurna Range
4
. Main Annapurna Range
5
. Annapurna seen from Camp I
6
. Route of the Final Assault
All Photographs courtesy M. Ichac except Camp Iva, courtesy G. Rébuffat
To
LUCIEN DEVIES
who was one of us
Introduction to the Pimlico Edition
by
JOE SIMPSON
Maurice Herzog’s
Annapurna
is for me quite simply the greatest mountaineering book ever written. I read it first at the age of fourteen, more than twenty years after it was published in 1952, just a few months before Hillary and Tenzing became the first to reach the summit of Everest. It was an immediate best-seller, probably surprising its publishers, Cape (also now my publishers), with a sale of 40,000 copies in the few weeks leading up to Christmas. I was a schoolboy at the time and had no ambitions to become a mountaineer; the very idea terrified me. I had no real understanding of what Herzog and his team had achieved, yet the book had a profound effect on me. I felt mentally and emotionally drained by the experience of reading it. I knew, intuitively, that here was something truly exceptional; something that words could never even begin to describe. I sensed that these men had experienced such an intensity of living as to be almost inconceivable. Although frightened by the obvious perils of mountaineering, I think it was this book that led me into what has become a life-long affair with the world’s great mountains.
Twenty-two years later I re-read this classic. By that time I had climbed all over the world and gained the knowledge of how it feels simply to be alive in these awesome places, and possess a powerful sense of how fragile yet strong, how vulnerable and invincible they can make you feel. I had half-expected to be disappointed, assuming that earlier the book had impressed me because I was a child and unenlightened as far as mountains go. Now I knew all about Lachenal, Terray and Rébuffat. I had read about their legendary exploits in the Alps and farther afield. They are all gone now; only Herzog survives out of those four beleaguered men who had fought their way off Annapurna, exhausted, terribly frostbitten, snow-blind and so very close to death.
Herzog’s summit companion, Louis Lachenal, died in a skiing accident, barely able, it would seem, to cope with the end of his climbing career. Outside the Alpine world he was like an ‘eagle with clipped
wings
’, as his great friend Terray described him. After Annapurna, sixteen operations and serious amputations ensured that he would never climb at the highest standards, never again experience ‘that old feeling of moving in a fourth dimension, of dancing on the impossible.’ His brilliance, his genius for being exceptional, could never really cope with strictures of disabled clumsiness.
Lionel Terray who, with Lachenal, formed one of the greatest climbing partnerships in post-war Alpinism, continued his mountaineering career after Annapurna with successful expeditions to Makalu, Jannu, Fitzroy, Denali and extreme ascents in the Peruvian Andes. Ironically Terray, who suffered so much with Rébuffat as they tried to save the summiteers, was killed in one of those avoidable rock climbing accidents when a slip on easy ground in the Vercors, in France, led him and his partner into a fatal fall in 1965. At least we were left the consolation of his superb autobiography,
Conquistadors of the Useless
.
Gaston Rébuffat recently succumbed to cancer, having carved out a career in his native Alps as one of the greatest mountain guides of his generation. He was a multi-talented man, succeeding as a company director, popular as a lecturer, mountain photographer and successful alpine writer.
By contrast, Herzog seems indomitable. Always ambitious and a born leader, he forged a new life from the mutilation of his past, successfully immersing himself in public life as Mayor of Chamonix, President of the French Alpine Club, and holding parliamentary office as representative of Sports.
It was Herzog’s drive and leadership, and his astonishing determination that enabled he and Lachenal to become the first men to climb an 8,000-metre mountain. They made the ascent of Annapurna without oxygen and very nearly in a single Alpine-style push. By the time they had found the mountain and discovered a feasible way of climbing it, they had no more than twelve days before the monsoon swept in from India. They reached the summit with barely twenty-four hours to spare. Even today such a climb in that time scale would be an exceptional feat. In 1950 it was quite extraordinary, and it contradicted all the opinions of the so-called experts of the day. But what a fearful price they had to pay for their impudence.
When the team left France for Nepal, they actually had two 8,000-metre
objectives
in mind, Dhaulagiri and Annapurna, but were uncertain how to approach either of them. Maps were inaccurate, if not useless, above a certain height, and information on the best approaches was almost non-existent. In those days lush, virgin forests had yet to be denuded by rampant felling. Road-like paths, trampled out by thousands of trekkers, simply did not exist. By the time the expedition had abandoned any hope of climbing Dhaulagiri, and had discovered a possible line of ascent on Annapurna, the monsoon was almost upon them. In a race against time, they managed to equip and supply five camps before Herzog and Lachenal made their impetuous dash for the summit. Flushed with success as the storms gathered, the descent became a nightmare. They were forced to endure a freezing night in the bowels of a crevasse with their snow-blinded rescuers, Rébuffat and Terray. Death seemed inevitable. I understand just how desperate they must have felt. I know the loneliness of being left for dead. High in the Peruvian Andes, I once endured an endless, bleak night in the depths of an icy crevasse from which there seemed to be no escape, and, like Herzog, I too was convinced that it was my turn to die in the mountains. I now have an abundant sense of the despair and the ecstasy that such intense experiences create.