Maurice André Raymond Herzog (; 15 January 191913 December 2012) was a French mountaineer and administrator who was born in Lyon, France. He led the 1950 French Annapurna expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, Annapurna, in 1950, and reached the summit with Louis Lachenal. Upon his return, he wrote a best-selling book about the expedition, Annapurna.
Ascent of Annapurna I
On 3 June 1950, Herzog and Louis Lachenal became the first climbers in modern history to climb a peak over 8000m when, on the 1950 French Annapurna expedition, they summited the Himalayan mountain Annapurna I, the 10th-highest mountain in the world. The ascent was all the more remarkable because the peak was explored, reconnoitered and climbed all within one season; and was climbed without the use of supplemental oxygen. It is also the only 8000 meter summit that was reached at the first attempt. Herzog was awarded the 1950 Gold Medal of the Société de Géographie.
The event caused a huge sensation that was only matched when Everest was summited in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.
The two-week retreat from the peak proved very challenging. Both climbers had opted for light boots for the summit dash. This, combined with Herzog losing his gloves near the summit and a night spent bivouacked in a crevasse on the descent with one sleeping bag for four climbers (Lachenal, Gaston Rébuffat, Lionel Terray, and Herzog) resulted in severe frostbite, with consequent gangrene requiring the expedition doctor to perform emergency amputations in the field. Both summit climbers lost all of their toes and Herzog most of his fingers.
Annapurna I was not climbed again until 1970, when the French north face route was climbed by a British Army expedition led by Colonel Henry Day, simultaneously with an ascent of the south face by an expedition led by British climber Chris Bonington. The mountain's fourth ascent was not until 1977.
Book
Herzog's account of the expedition was published in French in 1951. It was then translated to English by Nea Morin and Janet Adam Smith in 1952. The book was dictated by Herzog in an American Hospital in Neuilly, France. It is considered to be one of the most successful mountaineering books of all time and was ranked 77th in Sports Illustrated list of the top 100 sports books ever written. In the United States it was published as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection which increased its circulation and popularity.
Controversy
Some aspects of Herzog's account of the summit day have been called into question with the publication of other members’ accounts of the expedition, most significantly by a biography of Gaston Rébuffat and the posthumous publication, in 1996, of Lachenal's contemporaneous journals. In his book, Herzog says that Lachenal was a mere ghost that had to be persuaded to reach the summit, a telling that Lachenal refutes. Lachenal's diary from the expedition that conflicted on many details with Herzog's accounts. However, a posthumous release of his diary created more controversy and outcry, particularly from Lachenal's family, with Herzog as editor of the book, removing any criticisms of himself. Lachenal told another climber, Jean-Pierre Payot, that he was furious with Herzog and fed up with the way he used the Annapurna legend to further his career.
Herzog married Marie-Pierre de Cossé-Brissac in 1964. They had two children, Laurent and Felicité, and divorced in 1976. He remarried to Elisabeth Gamper in 1976 and had two more children, Sébastien and Mathias. He was International Olympic Committee Chief of Protocol from 1975 to 1978 and was a member of several commissions.