[82][83] 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.
[119] Herzog told of a happy team, all pulling together although at times Lachenal could be impetuous. A team led by Schatz built a makeshift bridge over the Miristi Kola and everyone hurried towards the bridge along paths that required Lachenal to be carried in a human cacolet and Herzog in a wicker basket. [102] He said that even after nearly 50 years his Annapurna experience still imbued his reborn life with "indescribable happiness". [156][note 17], Interviewed by Le Monde, Herzog said "What I wrote in Annapurna is the exact truth. [142] Back in 1956 the text Gérard Herzog had excluded was about matters he considered too unpleasant for publication such as the climbers being offered young girls for sex and, when this was refused, being offered young boys instead. [10][25] As the expedition approached from the south Dhaulagiri was clearly visible as a white pyramid to the west whereas Annapurna to the east was hidden behind the Nilgiri mountains. Although French mountaineers included some of the leading alpinists in the world,[note 1] they had not ventured much beyond the Alps[note 2] whereas their British counterparts, with little truly mountainous terrain of their own and less skill on rock faces, had been reconnoitring Himalaya via an India that was no longer British.
[63], Not understanding that being at high altitude without additional oxygen induces apathy, in a severe gale the climbers spent the night without eating anything or sleeping, and in the morning they did not bother lighting their stove to make hot drinks. They could not see Annapurna but there was a break in the Nilgiris where the Miristi Kola flows into the Kali Gandaki through a deep and narrow gorge with an impenetrable entrance. Finding that their boots were proving to be inadequately insulated, Lachenal, fearing losing his feet to frostbite, contemplated going down. [118], In the preface to the 1951 book Devies concentrates almost exclusively on the leader of the team: "The victory of the whole party was also, and above all, the victory of its leader".
Annapurna became the highest mountain to have been ascended to its summit, exceeding that achieved by the 1936 expedition to Nanda Devi, and the mountain was the first eight-thousander to be climbed. [105] All the royalties from the publication (in France it remained the best-selling work of non-fiction for nearly a year) went to the Himalayan Committee and were used to fund future expeditions – in a direct sense Herzog did not benefit financially at all. The grades used at that time eventually became the. The only person who had previously been to the Himalaya was Marcel Ichac who was the expedition's photographer and cinematographer. [20][23], Dhaulagiri and Annapurna are 34 kilometres (21 miles) apart on either side of the gorge of the Kali Gandaki river, a tributary of the Ganges. This article refers to the two highest peaks simply as "Dhaulagiri" and "Annapurna" rather than "Dhaulagiri I" and "Annapurna I". [1], For over one hundred years Nepal, ruled by the Rana dynasty, had not allowed explorers or mountaineers into the country. 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. Porters were paid according to the weight of their loads and they scorned the work they were being offered where the packs averaged about 40 kilograms (88 lb). He had shown the manuscript of Annapurna to everyone who had been on the expedition and they were impressed – even Lachenal. Fortunately Terray and Herzog had been able to see the plateau from their high point on the northwest spur and could tell the route across the plateau to the top was not technically difficult. The injections in the arteries of legs and arms were excruciatingly painful and they needed to be repeated for many days afterwards.
The first two camps, as you know, are pretty easy to get to and relatively safe though lots of folks had to excavate tents from over a meter of snow at C2. [130] It was deliberately written to complement Herzog's book. [105], 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 André Lavergne.
Next morning they reached a camp by the bridge but the river had risen to only 0.30 metres (1 ft) below the span so they needed to undertake the difficult crossing immediately.
Who were they?