First on Annapurna: Herzog and Lachenal Summit the Peak

Maurice Herzog lost his gloves near the summit and began losing his fingers within hours. On June 3, 1950, Herzog and Louis Lachenal stood on top of Annapurna at 8,091 meters, completing the first ascent of any peak above 8,000 meters. The triumph lasted minutes. The descent nearly killed them both. The French expedition had arrived in Nepal with incomplete maps and no certainty about which route up the mountain was even feasible. They spent weeks reconnoitering approaches to both Annapurna and neighboring Dhaulagiri before committing to Annapurna’s north face during a narrow weather window before the monsoon. The team established a chain of camps up the mountain, but the final push was made by just two men, exhausted and operating on the thin margin between ambition and survival. Lachenal, a professional Chamonix guide, reached the summit reluctantly. He had wanted to turn back, worried about frostbite in his feet, but Herzog pressed on and Lachenal followed out of loyalty and professional obligation. Both men were snow-blind and severely frostbitten by the time they stumbled back to Camp V. Herzog dropped his gloves during the descent and spent hours with his bare hands exposed to temperatures well below minus thirty degrees Celsius. Both climbers suffered severe frostbite. Herzog lost all his fingers and toes; Lachenal lost all his toes. Herzog’s book Annapurna, published in 1951, became the bestselling mountaineering book in history, selling eleven million copies. It presented the climb as a triumph of French national will and omitted or softened the conflicts within the expedition, including Lachenal’s reluctance and the chaotic, nearly fatal evacuation. Lachenal’s own diary, published posthumously decades later, told a darker story. Annapurna opened the era of Himalayan eight-thousander climbing, but it also established a pattern: the summit gets the glory, the descent takes the toll.