The 1950 French Annapurna expedition, led by Maurice Herzog, reached the summit of Annapurna I at , 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 , 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.
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. The feat was a great achievement for French mountaineering and caught the public imagination with front-page coverage in a best-selling issue of Paris Match. Herzog wrote a best-selling book Annapurna full of vivid descriptions of heroic endeavour and anguished suffering – but which much later was criticised for being too self-serving.
Background Himalayan mountaineering after World War II Annapurna is in the Eastern Himalaya in Nepal, and no one had attempted to climb the mountain before 1950. All pre–World War II Himalayan mountaineering expeditions had avoided Nepal and had travelled via Tibet or India, but in 1949, alarmed that the communists seemed to be gaining control in China, Tibet expelled all Chinese officials and closed its borders to foreigners. In October 1950 Tibet was occupied by the People's Republic of China and its borders remained closed indefinitely.
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. 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. Nepal first gave permission for a full mountaineering expedition for a French attempt in 1950 on Dhaulagiri or Annapurna.
French mountaineering Alpine mountaineering was immensely popular in France – the Fédération Française des clubs alpins et de montagne had 31,000 members in 1950 – and the top mountaineers were second only to footballers in their celebrity. Although French mountaineers included some of the leading alpinists in the world, they had not ventured much beyond the Alps whereas their British counterparts, with little truly mountainous terrain of their own and less skill on rock faces, had been reconnoitring Himalaya via newly-independent India. After the travails of war a mountaineering success would be good for the public mood.
Planning the expedition In 1949 the French Alpine Club requested permission from the Nepalese government to carry out a major expedition. The timing turned out to be ideal, and they were given permission to attempt to climb either Dhaulagiri or Annapurna in remote northwestern Nepal. The two mountain ranges, each consisting of many high peaks, are on each side of the great Kali Gandaki Gorge – Dhaulagiri I and Annapurna I, the highest in each range, are over and there had been no previous attempts to climb these mountains. The region had only been casually explored previously and the mountain heights had been determined by surveyors with precision theodolites positioned far away in India. Other nations felt that they should have been given priority but Nepal had favoured France. In Britain there had been the hope that international rivalry would cease after the war but this was not the view of the French government (who were providing one third of the resources) or of the banking and industrial sponsors, so the enterprise was to be strictly French.
, the most influential person in French mountaineering, was responsible for gathering together a team and he chose Maurice Herzog, an experienced amateur climber, to be the leader of the expedition. Accompanying him were to be three younger Chamonix professional mountain guides, Louis Lachenal, Lionel Terray and Gaston Rébuffat, and two amateurs Jean Couzy and . The expedition's doctor was 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. The three mountain guides would have preferred an international approach whereas Herzog welcomed climbing for national prestige. None were paid, not even the professional guides. The Maharajah of Nepal appointed G.B. Rana to accompany the expedition for local liaison, translation and general organisation.
Two days before the expedition departed, Devies gathered the French team together and required them to swear an oath that they would obey their leader in everything.
Embarking on expedition and reconnaissance Departure and march-in On 30 March 1950 the French Annapurna Expedition flew on an Air France DC-4 from Paris to New Delhi (with several refuelling stops). They took 3.5 tons of supplies which included ropes and outer clothing of nylon, down-filled jackets and felt-lined leather boots with rubber soles – all innovative equipment. Most of their food was to be bought locally and they had decided not to take bottled oxygen. Another aircraft took them to Lucknow where they met Ang Tharkay, the expedition's highly experienced sirdar A train took them to Nautanwa where they met up with the other sherpas and entered Nepal to travel on by truck through jungle and then grassy fields to Butwal where the road ended. On the march-in Lachenal and Terray would keep going on ahead as a scouting party while the rest followed with 150 porters carrying the supplies on their backs. Porters were paid according to the weight of their loads and they scorned the work they were being offered where the packs averaged about . However, they were willing to accept double loads of . Terray estimated the heaviest porter would not have had a body weight of over 80 kilograms.
Reconnaissance of region
Dhaulagiri and Annapurna are apart on either side of the gorge of the Kali Gandaki river, a tributary of the Ganges. 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. On first seeing Dhaulagiri on 17 April the immediate impression was that it was unclimbable. 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. The 1920s Survey of India map they were using (see left-hand Annapurna map below) showed a path leading up the gorge and over "Tilicho Pass" that might provide a route to the north face of Annapurna. However, none of the local inhabitants they spoke to knew of a path or had any further information. Continuing up the Kali Gandaki Gorge the team reached the market town of Tukusha at on 21 April. The people lived there in primitive conditions – Terray described the place as having "biblical charm". Couzy climbed a Nilgiri peak to the east of Tukusha to inspect the eastern Dhaulagiri terrain and he concluded the southeast ridge was "absolutely frightful". Even so, Herzog decided that they should first focus on Dhaulagiri, the higher mountain, since they would only have to investigate possible routes to the summit and would not have to reconnoitre to find the mountain itself.
Dhaulagiri exploration
Starting from Tukusha, the climbers Lachenal and Rébuffat 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). Unlike Annapurna, Dhaulagiri is well separated from its neighbouring peaks and it is steep on all sides. 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 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. 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°.
Annapurna exploration
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. 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 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.
With everyone back in Tukusha and with poor prospects of attaining either summit from the east, west or south, Herzog acted on the advice of a Buddhist lama that they should travel towards Muktinath on a route to the north and then east. Hoping they might be able to approach "Tilicho Pass" from the east along the track marked on their map, Rébuffat, Ichac and Herzog set off on 8 May crossing two passes north of a peak (now called Tilicho Peak) at each end of a frozen ice lake and discovering an unmapped wall of mountains to their south continuing beyond the lake and still blocking any view of Annapurna. This part of the Nilgiri range looping right round the north of Annapurna they called the "Great Barrier". Ichac and Ang Tharkay stayed back to do accurate surveying and to climb north to a point at about on a ridge, hoping the see the mountain over the Great Barrier – but everywhere was shrouded in mist. The main party reached the village of Manangbhot and explored slightly further before returning to Tukucha on the road via Muktinath. The expedition had been unable even to see Annapurna from the north, let alone discover a route to it. The map they had was so inaccurate that it was useless.
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.
Approach to Annapurna and summit Finding a location for base camp