Annapurna - Climbing Expeditions

Climbing Expeditions

Annapurna I was the first 8,000-metre (26,200 ft) peak to be climbed. Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal, of a French expedition led by Maurice Herzog (including Lionel Terray, Gaston Rébuffat, Marcel Ichac, Jean Couzy, Marcel Schatz, Jacques Oudot, Francis de Noyelle), reached the summit on 3 June 1950. (See the documentary of the expedition "Victoire sur l'Annapurna" by Marcel Ichac). Its summit was the highest summit attained on Earth for three years, until the first successful ascent of Mount Everest. (However, higher non-summit points—at least 8,500 metres (27,900 ft)—had already been attained on Everest in the 1920s.)

The south face of Annapurna was first climbed in 1970 by Don Whillans and Dougal Haston, members of a British expedition led by Chris Bonington which included the alpinist Ian Clough, who was killed by a falling serac during the descent. They were, however, beaten to the second ascent of Annapurna by a matter of days by a British Army expedition led by Henry Day.

In 1978, The American Women's Himalayan Expedition, a team led by Arlene Blum, became the first American team to climb Annapurna I. The first summit team, comprising Vera Komarkova and Irene Miller and Sherpas Mingma Tsering and Chewang Ringjing, reached the top at 3:30 p.m. on October 15, 1978. The second summit team, Alison Chadwick-Onyszkiewicz and Vera Watson, died during this climb.

On 3 February 1987, Polish climbers Jerzy Kukuczka and Artur Hajzer made the first winter ascent of Annapurna I.

Annapurna I holds the highest fatality rate among all 14 eight-thousanders although, for figures since 1990, Kanchenjunga has a higher death rate. As of 2005, there have been only 103 successful summit attempts, and 56 lives have been lost on the mountain, many to the avalanches for which it is known. Climbers killed on the peak include famed Russian climber Anatoli Boukreev in 1997, Christian Kuntner in 2005 and Iñaki Ochoa in 2008.

The first solo climb was October 2007 on the South Face by Slovenian climber Tomaž Humar.

On April 27, 2010, Oh Eun-Sun, a South Korean climber, may have become the first woman to ascend the world's 14 highest mountains by climbing the Annapurna. However, her claim to have climbed all 14 is currently treated as disputed by influential record keeper Elizabeth Hawley pending further investigation.