Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Among Herzog's contemporaries, Lachenal, Terray, and Rébuffat had all made more
and bolder climbs.
The reasons for the choice of Herzog as leader were several, the consequences far-
reaching. By 1950, there was already an established tradition of heading up Himalay-
an expeditions with men whose expertise at overland travel or whose proven record
of commanding others outstripped their abilities as technical climbers. In 1924, for
instance, George Leigh Mallory was the sole man who had twice before attempted
Everest and he was unquestionably Britain's finest mountaineer. Yet Mallory was
passed over for leadership of the fateful 1924 expedition, on which, with his young
partner Andrew Irvine, he would vanish into the clouds above 28,000 feet. Instead,
fifty-eight-year-old General Charles Bruce, whose main qualifications were an extens-
ive knowledge of India and long service in the army, was put in charge. Even after a
malarial attack forced Bruce to abandon the expedition, another climber, Colonel E. F.
Norton, was designated leader ahead of Mallory.
The choice of leader for a Himalayan expedition was usually made by some national
advisory body of senior mountaineers and explorers. In Britain, that group was the
Mount Everest Committee, an ad hoc assemblage recruited chiefly from the ranks of
the Alpine Club. In France, the body was the Comité de l'Himalaya (or Himalayan
Committee) of the Club Alpin Français (CAF), dominated by the autocratic Lucien
Devies.
The rationale behind choosing a leader such as General Bruce was that logistical
acumen and tactical judgment were more vital to the role than climbing ability. In ad-
dition, it was tacitly understood that a less-talented mountaineer might more readily
submerge his own ambition and choose the strongest pair of teammates for the sum-
mit attempt. Herzog, however, had less experience at logistics, less mountaineering
judgment than men such as Terray and Rébuffat; and on Annapurna, Herzog would
prove every bit as ambitious to reach the summit as his comrades.
Another factor at play in the Annapurna expedition—all but obsolete today, but
powerfully felt from the origins of mountaineering in the Alps in the 1780s all the
way through 1950—was the distinction between guides and amateurs. The guide was
a professional, born in the mountains where he earned his living, steeped in the nu-
ances of weather and snow conditions. The amateur was a man who lived elsewhere,
who climbed for pleasure and passion in his spare time. Even though amateurs such as
Edward Whymper on the Matterhorn or Alfred Mummery on the Grépon had spear-
headed the finest climbs performed in the second half of the nineteenth century, they
routinely climbed with guides. Well into the twentieth century, many pundits con-
sidered it scandalous and irresponsible to undertake “guideless” climbs.
