Getting to the top

Before

After - with hands kept out of sight

This being by way of notice of my second reading of a book by the climber Maurice Herzog, who led the French team who in 1950 made the first ascent of Annapurna. At the time, the highest summit reached by man, if not the highest point. Annoyingly, I can find no record of the first read, with the best that the blog can offer being Werner Herzog the filmmaker. With the prompt for the present post being the post at reference 2.

A very readable book, a book club edition with a reasonable selection of maps and pictures and with a very old-fashioned tone. We have, to start, a team of nine French sahibs – of whom six are real climbers, assault team stuff, and three are climbing support – plus a mixed bag of Sherpas and coolies – with all three words – sahibs, Sherpas and coolies – all over the place. Herzog, the leader, is assault team stuff. And he led from the front, unlike his illustrious successor on Everest, Colonel Hunt.

A book which is not spoilt by learning at some point that it is very much a fictionalised account, built on a foundation of journals and tidied up by a proper writer. A book which sold huge numbers, with profits going to the French Alpine Club.

Interestingly, the French team was selected by this same French Alpine Club, rather than by Herzog, just as the English team was later selected by the Joint Himalayan Committee of the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society, rather than by Hunt. I associate to Wellington moaning about all the duffers dumped on him for Waterloo by the War Office in London.

There was also a rather curious swearing in ceremony at which the members of the team took oaths of fealty to Leader Herzog.

Leading from the front in this case meant that Herzog and his rope partner Lachenal made a hazardous (and successful) dash for the summit, a dash against time as the monsoon was coming up fast from the south. The Sherpas had already had enough and headed down. Lachenal would have gone down except that Herzog said he would carry on anyway. Can’t leave a rope partner in the lurch. As it turned out, Herzog lost all of his toes and most of his fingers and was lucky to have got down alive at all. Lachenal was damaged, but not as badly. It was a tremendous climbing exploit, particularly given that the whole area was more or less unknown before the expedition and that they didn’t close in on the target until after a good deal of exploration, but from the comfort of my armchair, it is hard to see that it was worth it. And my guess is that Hunt would have pressed the abort button – from somewhere lower down the mountain, where he could still think straight.

The team being French, the supplies lugged up the mountain included fancy tinned meat, cognac, eau de Cologne (for Herzog) and lots of tobacco. The eau de Cologne came in handy for sterilising surgical instruments after the owner got down as far as the doctor. There was also lots of aspirin, sleeping tablets and other stuff so that they could sleep at high altitude. But no oxygen to speak of: the assault teams managed without, although they did seem to suffer from violent swings of mood and Herzog writes of his near death experiences. I imagine that the phrase ‘death zone’ came later.

Some of the porters were not allowed tobacco by their religion – but it was OK provided the stuff did not touch their lips. So they managed. And some of them were more or less press-ganged into service. Right of sahib in those days.

 

The plan

Herzog also had a revolver. Plus there was some hunting on the approaches. I believe Scott and Amundsen had them on their way to the South Pole, but I would be surprised if Hunt had one on the way to Everest: perhaps I ought to check the point in the Hunt book. But all these expeditions were organised on the same lines: project supplies as far along the way as possible, getting the assault teams acclimatised without wearing them out, getting the porters to do the heavy lifting, then once you got within range, let the assault teams loose. And in the words of the popular song (reference 7), if at first you don’t succeed, try, try [and try] again. I think in the case of Everest it was the second attempt which succeeded. 

So in the snap above, the large Base Camp is left. Then Camp I maybe half a day’s climbing further on, and so on, with Camps IV and V being apt to be very small, perhaps perched precariously on some steep and inhospitable wall of ice.

Herzog was a famous man when he got down, perhaps living on his fame thereafter. While the sort of obituary notice at reference 5 tells a different story, and I suspect that the book by his daughter at reference 6 will be very different again.

As it happens I already had a book by another of the assault climbers, Gaston Rébuffat, but that is just a picture book about the man and the practical side of climbing. Annapurna hardly gets a mention, never mind complaints.

References 

Reference 1: Annapurna: Conquest of the first 8,000m peak - Maurice Herzog - 1952.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/07/series-3-episode-i.html. 

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Herzog.

Reference 4: On snow and rock - Gaston Rébuffat – 1963.

Reference 5: https://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2012/09/13/herzog-devisse_1760048_3242.html. 

Reference 6: Un Héros - Félicité Herzog – 2012. A novel by Herzog’s daughter turned up from a second hand book operation in France earlier today. A novel which will probably say something about the high price one pays for getting to the top of very high mountains.

Reference 7: Perseverance or Try Again – William Hickson – 1836. In his book ‘The Singing Master’ of that year.