Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of the strongest expedition. Mount Everest, for instance, would be the goal of three
full-fledged reconnaissances and seven all-out attempts before its summit fell to Hil-
lary and Tenzing in 1953.
Between 1950 and 1964, all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks in the world were first
climbed, beginning with Annapurna in 1950 and ending with Shishapangma in 1964.
One measure of the quality of the French achievement is that, within that roster of
first ascents of the world's highest mountains, only Annapurna would be climbed by
the first expedition to reach its foot.
Knowing how vexsome merely approaching an unknown mountain could prove,
Devies and the Himalayan Committee had defined the team's mandate as an attempt
on either Annapurna or its neighbor, 26,811-foot Dhaulagiri (also previously unre-
connoitered). Once they had acquainted themselves with the topography surrounding
these two towering peaks, the team was to choose the easier of the objectives. For much
of April and May 1950, Herzog's men bent their best efforts toward getting to Dhaula-
giri. Annapurna came almost as an afterthought.
The approach to the mountains was fraught with setbacks. The usual porter strike
materialized, to be solved by the Gurkha officer deputed by the Maharajah of Nepal
to accompany the expedition, who beat a particularly obstreperous “coolie” and sent
him fleeing as a lesson to the others. The Sherpas, who would prove so vital on the
mountain, were more loyal. “It thrilled me,” wrote Herzog, with the unconscious con-
descension of his day, “to see these little, yellow men, with their plump muscles. . . .
The expedition was to give them plenty of opportunity to show what they were made
of.”
Terray was afflicted with a persistent stomachache, Rébuffat with lassitude, head-
ache, and insomnia. As they gained altitude, eventually surpassing the height of Mont
Blanc (the highest any of the men except Ichac had been before), Herzog seemed to
acclimatize better than his teammates.
After fifteen days of trekking, the team reached the mountain village of Tukucha,
equidistant between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. Four days before, they had caught
their first sight of Dhaulagiri, “an immense pyramid of ice, glittering in the sun like a
crystal,” its remote summit 23,000 feet above their lowland trudge. The sight was both
joyous and discouraging. “Just look at the east arête, on the right,” one team member
blurted out. “Yes, it's impossible,” rejoined another. (In Herzog's text, which is rich in
dialogue, the identities of the speakers often go unspecified.)
The team used Tukucha as base, setting out, usually in pairs, to untangle the lay of
the land and try to find a way to the foot of Dhaulagiri. It was now that they began
to realize that their Indian Survey maps were seriously in error. On the map, the val-
