Annapurna

The distinguished French mountaineer Maurice Herzog was leader of the 1950 expedition to Annapurna. He was one of the two climbers to reach the summit.

"'A classic of its kind... His vivid, high powered but never overdramatised account of the ascent still reads splendidly'" The Irish Times "After being swept off his feet by an avalanche and left dangling by a rope around his neck, Herzog 'began to pass water, violently and uncontrollably'. Your reaction may be only slightly less extreme as you move from one nail-biting moment to the next in this wonderful 1952 tale of triumph and frostbite." Outside "Quite simply the greatest mountaineering book ever written." Joe Simpson, from the Introduction "The climb took place before the Himalayas were a tourist attraction and before Gore-Tex cold-weather gear was available in Marks & Spencer. They had no oxygen, little food and on the descent Herzog lost his gloves, got trapped in a storm, was buried in an avalanche and became frostbitten. His descriptions don't stint on the details of maggot-ridden flesh and amputations without anaesthesia" -- Richard Eyre "Those who have never seen the Himalayas...will know that they have been a companion of greatness" New York Times Book Review