Annapurna Book Controversy
Marlys Stotesberry
The 1950 French Annapurna expedition, led by Maurice Herzog, reached the summit of Annapurna I at 8,091 metres (26,545 ft), the highest peak in the Annapurna Massif. The mountain is in Nepal and the government had given permission for the expedition, the first time it had permitted mountaineering in over a century. After failing to climb Dhaulagiri I at 8,167 metres (26,795 ft), the higher peak nearby to the west, the team attempted Annapurna with Herzog and Louis Lachenal, reaching the summit on 3 June 1950. It was only with considerable help from their team that they were able to return alive, though with severe injuries following frostbite.
For over one hundred years Nepal, ruled by the Rana dynasty, had not allowed explorers or mountaineers into the country. However, by 1946 a possible communist-sponsored revolution was even less welcome than Western influence so Nepal opened diplomatic discussions with the United States. Privately hoping to be able to use Nepal as a Cold War launching point for missiles, the United States welcomed the new situation.[note 1] Scientific expeditions became permitted but two requests in 1948 from Switzerland and Britain for purely mountaineering expeditions were refused. A year later mountaineers were allowed if they were accompanying scientific travellers.[3][4] Nepal first gave permission for a full mountaineering expedition for a French attempt in 1950 on Dhaulagiri or Annapurna.[5]
Lucien Devies [fr], the most influential person in French mountaineering,[note 5] was responsible for gathering together a team and he chose Maurice Herzog, an experienced amateur climber, to be the leader of the expedition.[note 6] Accompanying him were to be three younger Chamonix professional mountain guides, Louis Lachenal, Lionel Terray and Gaston Rbuffat, and two amateurs Jean Couzy and Marcel Schatz [fr]. The expedition's doctor was Jacques Oudot [fr] and the interpreter and transport officer Francis de Noyelle, a diplomat. The only person who had previously been to the Himalaya was Marcel Ichac who was the expedition's photographer and cinematographer.[11][note 7] The three mountain guides would have preferred an international approach whereas Herzog welcomed climbing for national prestige.[18] None were paid, not even the professional guides.[19] The Maharajah of Nepal appointed G.B. Rana to accompany the expedition for local liaison, translation and general organisation.[20]
Starting from Tukusha, the climbers Lachenal and Rbuffat headed for an initial exploration of Dhaulagiri's eastern glacier, while Herzog, Terray and Ichac went to the north where they found their 1920s map was seriously defective (see above).[30] Unlike Annapurna, Dhaulagiri is well separated from its neighbouring peaks and it is steep on all sides.[31] They found an unmapped region they called the "Hidden Valley" but from there they were unable to see the mountain at all. Over the next two weeks small groups examined the southeast and northeast ridges while Terray and Oudot reached a 5,300-metre (17,500 ft) pass (called French Pass) beyond the Hidden Valley but, although they were able to see Dhaulagiri, they decided the north face could not be climbed.[30] They were also able to see across to Annapurna in the distance where there were steep cliffs to the south but the northern profile did not look to be more than 35.[32]
During this Dhaulagiri reconnaissance, Schatz, Couzy, Oudot and Ang Tharkay had been back south to explore the deep canyon of the Miristi Kola river. When they had previously passed that river on the march-in it seemed to have a greater flow than would be likely for the limited drainage basin shown on the map. To avoid the entrance to the gorge, the party climbed to the ridge of the Nilgiris from where they could see the ravine below was indeed impassable.[note 11][30] However, traversing beside the ridge by following a slight path marked with cairns, they reached a point from which Schatz and Couzy were able to descend 910 metres (3,000 ft) to the river and from there they reached the base of Annapurna's northwest spur. They could not tell whether the spur, or the ice fields on either side of it, might provide a feasible route to the summit.[35]
With the start of the monsoon predicted for the first week in June, back in Tukusha on 14 May they held a meeting to discuss which mountain to attempt and along which particular route. Terray wrote: "In full awareness of his terrible responsibility Maurice chose the more reasonable but uncertain course: we would attempt Annapurna." The route would be the one reconnoitered by Schatz and Couzy's team.[38][39]
Most of the party set out for the Miristi Kola as an advance reconnaissance group leaving most of the porters to bring the rest of stores and equipment later. They took with them the medical supplies deemed necessary by Oudot including Maxiton (the equivalent amphetamine preparation in Britain was Benzedrine[40]).[41] In three separate groups they crossed the Nilgiri range, traversed east above the Miristi Kola, and descended the gorge. Crossing the river they set up a base camp at the foot of a glacier below Annapurna's northwest spur. Two teams moved up the spur, a feat of considerable technical climbing,[note 12] but even after repeated attempts over five days they were unable to get higher than about 6,000 metres (20,000 ft).[38][43][note 13]
Herzog's plan had been that he and Terray should rest before attempting the summit but the other four climbers became too exhausted to do their part of a carry to Camp IV so Terray (disobeying the orders he had received to go down from Camp III to Camp II) climbed with Rbuffat and a team of sherpas to carry up these loads.[60][61] This unselfish act by Terray led to Herzog (who had acclimatised the best[13]) and Lachenal, accompanied by Ang Tharkay and Sarki, being the ones who set out from Camp II on 31 May for an attempt on the summit. Next day Herzog's team moved Camp IV to a better site at the top of the Sickle cliff (Camp IVA) and then on 2 June they climbed a gully through the Sickle to establish Camp V, their assault camp, on the snow fields above.[62] With the monsoon now forecast for 5 June, time was extremely tight.[63] Herzog offered Ang Tharkay and Sarki the opportunity to accompany them to the summit but they turned down what would have been a great honour.[note 16] The two sherpas headed back to Camp IVA.[64]
Next morning Lachenal's feet would not fit into his boots so Terray gave him his larger ones and then slit the uppers of Lachenal's so he could wear them himself.[83][84] Descending with the storm still raging they could not find Camp IVA anywhere and they were desperate to avoid a bivouac out in the open. While they were frantically trying to dig a snow hole Lachenal fell through some snow covering a crevasse. Fortunately, he landed in a snow cave that could provide some slight shelter for them all in the night though they had no food or water and only one sleeping bag.[76]In the night snow poured in on them burying their boots and cameras. Next morning they took a long time to find their boots but their cameras, with the only photographs taken at the summit, could not be found.[85] They climbed out of the crevasse but by now Terray and Rbuffat were snowblind so the pair crippled with frostbite led the blind pair slowly down until by extreme good fortune they were met by Schatz who guided them back down to Camp IVA.[86]
At Camp II Oudot, the expedition's doctor, injected Herzog and Lachenal to help improve their blood flow. The injections in the arteries of legs and arms were excruciatingly painful and they needed to be repeated for many days afterwards.[note 21] On 7 June everyone started descending again with Herzog, Lachenal and Rbuffat lying on sledges. Needing to hurry before the monsoon made the Miristi Kola impassable through flooding, they reached Camp I as the sky clouded over and heavy rains started. From here, on 8 June, they wrote a telegram, announcing that Annapurna had been climbed, to be taken by a runner for sending to Devies in Paris. The route to Base Camp was over terrain unsuitable for sledges so Herzog and Lachenal were carried on the backs of sherpas. Once at base, and just at the right time, a large team of porters arrived to transport the whole expedition back to Lete on the Gandaki River.[90]
Herzog was kept at the American hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine for the best part of a year where he dictated his book Annapurna, premier 8000 which sold over 11 million copies worldwide to become the best selling mountaineering book in history.[note 24] He became the first international mountaineering celebrity after George Mallory and went on to be a successful politician.[105][106][107] Fifty years later in France he was still as famous as Jacques Cousteau or Jean-Claude Killy whereas few remembered Lachenal or any of the others.[106]
In June 2000, the French national postal services issued a 3 franc stamp (0.46 euro) celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the climb, designed by Jean-Paul Cousin and engraved by Andr Lavergne.[108]
Over the following years several members of the expedition wrote about their experiences[bibliography] and the varied accounts eventually led to controversy.[109] At the airport, before setting off on the expedition, Herzog had required each member of the team to sign an undertaking not to publish or publicly communicate anything about the expedition for five years so initially Herzog's was the only version of events to be known.[110] However, in 1996 two very different accounts were published and "a storm of controversy seized France".[111] Herzog responded in 1998. After speaking to many of the people involved who were still alive,[note 25] in 2000 David Roberts, the American mountaineer and writer, published True Summit, discussing the whole issue.[note 26][112]
James Ramsey Ullman wrote in the New York Herald Tribune that Annapurna was "a gallant and moving story, in some ways a terrible story" predicting it would become a mountaineering classic. Time wrote that the first half was like "a boy camper's letter to a chum" but what followed was a "harrowing ordeal-by-nature calculated to shiver the spirit of the toughest armchair explorer."[116] Herzog and Ichac published a photographic book in 1951 Regards vers l'Annapurna[117] and in 1981 Herzog published a historical work Les grandes aventures de l'Himalaya[118] which had a section on Annapurna.[119]
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