Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
joy of
montagnards
who love their mountains and are happy because other
montagnards
have come from afar to admire them.
Herzog has circled “about pseudo-stars” and written in the margin, “propose to sup-
press.”
The two reached the summit at 7:00 or 8:00
A.M.
on the second day. The moment
awakened for Lachenal glimmerings of Annapurna:
It was perfectly clear, with a little wind. We had all the time in the world to dawdle. It would
be difficult to describe our thoughts, except that all the bad memories had been wiped out.
On the typescript another hand, that of Lucien Devies, has circled the second half of
the last sentence and written “No.”
In the end, not one line of Lachenal's account was published in the 1956
Carnets.
Instead, Gérard Herzog summarized the climb in two pages, whitewashing it: “The as-
cent unfurled without the slightest incident.” The account ends with a different sum-
mit moment:
As on Annapurna, they said nothing of their buoyant feelings, which forebade the slightest
word. Their gazes crossed in a flash. Each one cast a furtive glance at the short little boots of
the other. Jubilant, Lachenal smiled.
By 1955, Lachenal was climbing at near his pre-Annapurna level. He was still only
thirty-four years old. Terray had started going off every summer on an expedition. In
his absence, André Contamine became Lachenal's regular partner.
In the spring of 1955, when the five-year interdiction against publishing any ac-
count of Annapurna expired, Lachenal now set out to write a memoir of his climbing
life, with his version of Annapurna as the centerpiece. He had guarded his diary, and he
appealed to an acquaintance, Philippe Cornuau, who had just come off a landmark first
ascent on the Droites and was in need of a spell of recuperation, to help him. Lachenal
had never had much confidence in his writing ability, thinking his style too crude and
down-to-earth. Cornuau was a professional freelance writer, contributing regularly to
Réalités, L'Express,
and other journals.
“He was in a hurry to get it out,” recalls Cornuau. “We didn't have quite the same
idea of the topic. Lachenal wanted a quick book, I wanted a more ambitious one. I
thought, there are very few biographies of climbers. I knew Lachenal's reputation as a
breakneck daredevil was inexact. I wanted to produce a personal, psychological account
of a climber's life.”
