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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Dec 14, 2012 - 01:19pm PT
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David Roberts book "True Summit' helps to create the real picture of what happened on the 1950 French Annapurna expedition.
What is the "real" picture? Was Roberts there for the "real" picture?
Give me the cliff notes.
I will 100% forget about this post before I would take the time and spend the money for that book.
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Gary
Social climber
Right outside of Delacroix
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Dec 14, 2012 - 01:19pm PT
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David Roberts book "True Summit
I read that and though David Roberts was a little bitch.
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BBA
climber
OF
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Dec 14, 2012 - 02:06pm PT
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I read Annapurna in 1958 and still remember (I think) a quote under a photo, "And the victory is ours". The photo was of frozen fingers.
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MH2
climber
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Dec 14, 2012 - 02:14pm PT
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Reading Annapurna a year or 2 into my own climbing career had lasting effect on me, mostly because of the cover art.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Dec 14, 2012 - 02:39pm PT
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That book rocked my world. Rest in peace Maurice!
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Jennie
Trad climber
Elk Creek, Idaho
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Dec 14, 2012 - 02:43pm PT
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Whenever heroes become manifest, it seems people materialize to debunk and wrest away their noble legend.
I read Mr Roberts book with mixed feelings. Gaston Rebuffat's version and Louis Lachenal's journals don't agree with Msr Herzog's account but one might wonder if Dave Robert's magnified the contradictions...
He suggests that long time friends Terray and Rebuffat were at odds with one another after the expedition (presumably over Terray's loyalty to Herzog)...even though Rebuffat pleaded with Terray's widow to be a pallbearer at Lionel's funeral years later.
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pile
Mountain climber
somewhere near suicide rock
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Dec 14, 2012 - 03:14pm PT
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Much Respect...what a life
RIP
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Borut
Mountain climber
Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Dec 14, 2012 - 04:14pm PT
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RIP
I remember Maurice Herzog and Haroun Tazieff giving a lecture before we were shown Tazieff's film about climbing volcanoes. This goes back to the late 1960s, in France, and was organized for school kids by "Connaissance du Monde". We got to see films and the film makers.
Herzog's book was a best seller.
Edit: in case of need, I'd vote for Lachenal.
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philo
Trad climber
Is that light the end of the tunnel or a train?
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 14, 2012 - 05:44pm PT
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As a young man just venturing into vertical adventure Herzog's book grabbed me by the inner core and tugged hard.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Dec 14, 2012 - 06:51pm PT
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MH2, that's the one that fired my Midwestern prairie-dweller's imagination!
That cover and the story about chucking the lopped off digits out of the
train carriage window in the station to dissuade the horde from entering.
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SCseagoat
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Dec 14, 2012 - 07:06pm PT
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Wow, an awesome adventurer...I too, like many, did not realize he was still alive, well I guess he's not now. Loved the book....
Susan
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Dec 14, 2012 - 10:10pm PT
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I still remember about his toes bouncing off in the train. . .
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Dec 15, 2012 - 12:25am PT
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I have to read the book again; it has been fifty years now since I last pounded the thing down. But anything with Terray in it is, for me at least, basically holy. And I join with everyone else regarding how pivotal our early exposures to this writing were.
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Grippa
Trad climber
Salt Lake City, UT
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Dec 15, 2012 - 09:41am PT
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Annapurna by Maurice Herzog was the first mountaineer book I've ever read, and to this day probably the best I've ever read. RIP
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can't say
Social climber
Pasadena CA
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Dec 15, 2012 - 10:15am PT
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Like Annapurna and On Rock, Snow and Ice, Conquistadors of the Useless by Terray sealed the deal on what I imagined a soul climber to be ie. he did it for all the right reasons. Sort of like Buhl and Preuss but French.
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can't say
Social climber
Pasadena CA
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Dec 15, 2012 - 12:24pm PT
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Randisi, I lived in the Bavarian alps for close to 5 years and was introduced to his routes very early in my climbing career. It's why I included him.
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o-man
Social climber
Paia,Maui,HI
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Dec 15, 2012 - 01:39pm PT
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Maurice Herzog Dies
Friday, 14 December 2012 05:40 | by David Roberts |
The legendary French mountaineer Maurice Herzog has died at the age of 93. Herzog, with Louis Lachenal, was the first person to reach the summit of an 8,000-meter peak. The French team's ascent of 8,091-meter Annapurna in 1950 was an astonishing breakthrough performance.
The team reached the base of Annapurna only on May 18. The men had little more than two weeks before the monsoon would shut down the mountain.
On the extremely dangerous north face, they pulled out all the stops and blazed a route across avalanche-prone slopes and through the great ice cliff called The Sickle. On June 3, Herzog and Louis Lachenal trudged to the summit—but in doing so incurred frostbite so terrible it would cost Herzog all his toes and fingers, Lachenal all his toes.
A year after the climb Herzog wrote the book Annapurna, a page-turner that sold some 11 million copies, making it the most popular climbing publication of all time.
Annapurna was the book that turned me into a climber, at age 17. But as I later learned, and as I argued in True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent on Annapurna, that book amounts to a gilded myth. The true story of Annapurna 1950 was of constant conflict among members who somehow managed to cooperate in a brilliant ascent. In France, the elevation of Herzog to godlike status eclipsed the deeds of the other climbers, who (in my view) were the true heroes—Lachenal, Lionel Terray, and Gaston Rébuffat, in particular, but also Marcel Schatz and Jean Couzy.
The real story of what happened on Annapurna in 1950 is, I think, more interesting than Herzog’s fairy tale—and, ironically, even more heroic.
Whatever distortions of truth Herzog perpetrated in Annapurna, his role in the climb cannot be slighted. Though far less skilled or experienced than the three great Chamonix guides, Herzog always led from the front, and on the assault of the north face, he was as strong and climbed as boldly as did Lachenal, Rébuffat, and Terray. He was, when all is said and done, the driving force in one of mountaineering’s most legendary achievements.
Riding his fame, Herzog became the French Minister of Youth and Sport in 1958 and mayor of Chamonix. He was also on the International Olympic Committee for 25 years before retiring in 1995.
Due to his injuries Herzog largely retired from climbing but remained a popular public speaker—his slideshow presentation of Annapurna gripped audiences all over the world. Herzog was the last surviving member of the Annapurna team.
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shipoopoi
Big Wall climber
oakland
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Dec 15, 2012 - 02:33pm PT
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Maurice was a hero to everybody pretty much. when my wife and i were lucky enough to be presenters at the banff film festival in chile, we got to actually meet him, and even flew in a chopper from Portillo ski area to downtown santiago with him. Even saw a condor on the flight. ss
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