Annapurna Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  List of Illustrations

  List of Maps

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Introduction by Joe Simpson

  Foreword

  Preface

  I: Preparations

  II: The Himalaya

  III: The Hidden Valley

  IV: The East Dhaulagiri Glacier

  V: Looking for Annapurna

  VI: Council of War

  VII: The Miristi Khola

  VIII: The Spur

  IX: Annapurna

  X: The Sickle

  XI: Camp II

  XII: The Assault

  XIII: The Third of June

  XIV: The Crevasse

  XV: The Avalanche

  XVI: The Retreat

  XVII: In the Woods of Lete

  XVIII: Through the Paddy Fields

  XIX: Gorakhpur

  XX: There are Other Annapurnas

  Picture Section

  Glossary

  Copyright

  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 F
rance, 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.

  Herzog speaks the language of an honest man, unashamed of his weakness and his mistakes, quick to praise his friends and never one for vainglory. It is this integrity that lends his words such evocative power. He writes of the mountains with affection and passion, never with bitterness or any sense that he has been harshly treated. They are to him, as they have become for me, sources of wonder, of life-enhancing moments when the borders between living and dying seem to overlap, when the past and the future cease to exist and you are free.

  His account – including the grisly descriptions of casual amputations towards the end – has the uplifting effect of proving that it is possible to win against all the odds if you just keep trying. It is a lesson well worth remembering. If one of the team had perished, this positive note would instantly have been erased. The fact that they suffered so cruelly for their summit seems to add to the heroic scale of their triumph rather than detract from it.

  The mountains often provide life-changing experiences, unforgettable in the vivid lucidity with which they are later recalled, sometimes crushing in the agony and grief they can impose. Perhaps the most vivid moments in this book occur when on the summit Herzog thinks to himself, ‘How wonderful life would now become! What an inconceivable experience it is to attain one’s ideal and, at the very same moment, to fulfil oneself. I was stirred to the depths of my being. Never had I felt happiness like this – so intense and yet so pure.’ Within an hour of starting the descent he was to be plunged into despair as he watched his gloves tumble out of his reach. ‘The movement of those gloves was engraved in my sight as something ineluctable, irremediable, against which I was powerless.’ Mountains have a stunning beauty, a coldly savage addictive quality that is difficult to resist and dangerous to ignore.

  For tense high drama, shattering emotional impact and compelling readability, I know of few other books to compare with Maurice Herzog’s Annapurna. It is an inspirational read for people of all ages, whether mountaineers or not.

  Joe Simpson

  Sheffield, July 1996

  Foreword

  The whole of this book has been dictated at the American Hospital at Neuilly where I am still having rather a bad time.

  The basis of the narrative is, of course, my memory of all that happened. In so far as the record is comprehensive and exact, that is due to the Expedition’s log which Marcel Ichac so faithfully kept – an essential document, sometimes written up at the very moment of action. Louis Lachenal’s private journal, and the details supplied by all my friends, have been of the greatest possible use. So this book is the work of the whole party.

  The text, often colloquial in style, has been revised and put into shape by my brother Gerard Herzog, the sharer of my earliest mountain pleasures, as indeed of my earliest experiences of life. If it had not been for the confidence I had in his rendering, and for the encouragement he gave me day by day, I doubt if I should ever have been able to finish my task.

  The name of Robert Boyer, who did so much for our Expedition, does not figure in this record and yet his understanding friendship was a tonic in my darkest hours.

  This is the first time I have written a book; I never realized before what a long business it was. Sometimes the job was almost too much for me, but I have undertaken it because I wanted to set down, on behalf of all those who went with me, the story of a terrible adventure which we survived only by what still seems to me an incredible series of miracles.

  The following pages record the actions of men at grips with Nature at her most pitiless, and tell of their sufferings, hopes and joys.

  As I conceived to be my duty, I have given a plain truthful account of what happened, and have tried – so far as lay within my powers – to bring out its human aspect, and convey the extraordinary psychological atmosphere in which everything took place.

  All the nine members of the Expedition will have more than one reason for cherishing this record. Together we knew toil, joy and pain. My fervent wish is that the nine of us who were united in face of death should remain fraternally united for life.

  In overstepping our limitations, in touching the extreme boundaries of man’s world, we have come to know something of its true splendour. In my worst moments of anguish I seemed to discover the deep significance of existence of which till then I had been unaware. I saw that it was better to be true than to be strong. The marks of the ordeal are apparent on my body. I was saved and I had won my freedom. This freedom, which I shall never lose, has given me the assurance and serenity of a man who has fulfilled himself. It has given me the rare joy of loving that which I used to despise. A new and splendid life has opened out before me.

  In this narrative we do more than record our adventures, we bear witness: events that seem to make no sense may sometimes have a deep significance of their own. There is no other justification for an acte gratuit.

  Hôpital Américain de Paris

  June 1951

  Preface

  The conquest of Annapurna has stirred up general interest which is still increasing. It was, beyond all question, one of the greatest adventures of our times, and most nobly carried out.

  Maurice Herzog and his companions have crowned a long series of attempts and successes, by climbing not only the highest summit yet attained by man, but also the first summit of over 8000 metres, the first to be climbed of the very highest mountains of
the world.

  With this victory, achieved at a first attempt and in an unknown region, they have succeeded in an enterprise which the most experienced Himalayan travellers had considered impossible. That outstanding English climber, the late Frank Smythe, who had been on five Himalayan expeditions, had conquered Mount Kamet and had attained the highest point (8500 metres) reached on Everest, had declared that ‘Mountaineering in the Himalaya presents such difficulties that, as far as one can see, no expedition will ever succeed in climbing one of the twelve highest peaks at a first attempt.’

  This, however, is exactly what the Annapurna Expedition of 1950 achieved.

  Victory in the Himalaya is a collective victory, for the party as a whole. Every member of the expedition, each in his place, whether more or less favoured by circumstances, has been worthy of the trust placed in him; one and all carried out with unswerving devotion their duty of bringing the two injured climbers safely down. We give them in full measure the gratitude they have so richly earned; but at the same time we realize that the victory of the whole party was also, and above all, the victory of its leader.

  The other members of the party have been the first to confirm the wisdom of our choice of a leader by the affection, and even reverence, in which they hold him. But it was not the Himalaya that revealed Maurice Herzog to us, for his past record had convinced us that we had entrusted the Expedition to the most valiant of them all. The Himalaya did, however, provide him with the opportunity – ultimately, alas, in the most appalling circumstances – to be the very soul of a great adventure, and this he accomplished in the most moving and magnificent way.

  What a range of gifts he has shown! His intelligence and character opened many fields of activity to him. His grasp of the practical side of life debarred him neither from the poetry of Mallarmé nor from the Pensées of Pascal. He was as much at home in a city office as on one of the great Italian ridges of Mont Blanc. His great goodness of heart, which won him so many friends, did not prevent him from taking firm decisions, when necessary, or forming a clear-sighted judgment of people. A level head controlled the natural exuberance of an abounding vitality.