Maurice Herzog

Maurice Herzog  was a French mountaineer and sports administrator who was born in Lyon, France. He led the expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, Annapurna, in 1950, and reached the summit with Louis Lachenal. Upon his return, he wrote a best-selling book about the expedition.

On June 3, 1950 Herzog and Louis Lachenal became the first people to climb a peak over 8000m when they summited the Himalayan mountain Annapurna, the 10th-highest mountain in the world. The ascent was all the more remarkable because the peak was explored, reconnoitered and climbed all within one season; and was climbed without the use of supplemental oxygen.

The event caused a sensation that was only surpassed when Everest was summited in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

The two-week retreat from the peak proved challenging. Both summit climbers had opted for light boots for the summit dash. This, combined with Herzog losing his gloves near the summit, and a night spent bivouaced in a crevasse on the descent with one sleeping bag for four climbers (Louis Lachenal, Gaston Rebuffat, Lionel Terray, and Maurice Herzog) resulted in severe frostbite, with consequent gangrene requiring the expedition doctor to perform emergency amputations in the field.

Both summit climbers lost all of their toes and Herzog most of his fingers.

Annapurna was not climbed again until 1970, when the French north face route was climbed by a British Army expedition, simultaneous with an ascent of the south face by an expedition led by British climber Chris Bonington. The mountain's fourth ascent was not until 1977.

Herzog’s account of the expedition was published first in 1951 in French, then in English in 1952 under the title Annapurna. The book has sold over 11 million copies, as of 2000, more than any other mountaineering title.

Ending with the stirring line “there are other Annapurnas in the lives of men” (in the context of the book, an exhortation to answer the challenges that life offers), the book gave an account of the expedition that established Herzog’s climbing reputation and inspired a generation of mountaineers.

Controversy over his account of the ascent

Some details of Herzog's account of the summit day have been called into question with the publication of other members’ accounts of the expedition, most significantly by a biography of Gaston Rébuffat and the posthumous publication, in 1996, of Lachenal’s contemporaneous journals.

The 2000 book True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent of Annapurna by David Roberts gives one view of the controversy.

Other achievements

Herzog went on to become the French Minister of Youth and Sport from 1958 to 1963, and mayor of the alpine town of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. He was a member of the International Olympic Committee for 25 years from 1970, and has been an honorary member since 1995.

He is a Grand Officer of the Legion d'Honneur and holder of the Croix de Guerre for military service 1939-45.

Herzog is a 1944 graduate of the French business school HEC Paris.

Publications, Books

• Herzog, Maurice; Nea Morin and Janet Smith (translators) (1952). Annapurna, First Conquest of an 8000-meter Peak. New York, NY, USA: E. P. Dutton & Co. Library of Congress Catalog Card No: 52-12154. (first American printing)
• Herzog, Maurice (1997). Annapurna. New York, NY, USA: The Lyons Press. ISBN 1-55821-549-2. (current American edition)

• Terray, Lionel; Geoffrey Sutton (trans) (2000). Conquistadors of the Useless. London, UK: Baton Wicks Publications. ISBN 1-898573-38-7. (current English edition - original French edition 1961)
• Hattingh, Garth (1999). Top Climbs of the World. London, UK: New Holland Publishers, Ltd. ISBN 1-85974-085-5.
• Roberts, David (2002). True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent of Annapurna. New York, NY, USA: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-0327-5.