Maurice Herzog was born on January 15th, 1919 in Lyon, France. He was a French mountaineer and sports administrator who led the expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, the Himalayan mountain Annapurna, On June 3rd, 1950. Before Herzog and Louis Lachenal summited the Annapurna, the 10th-highest mountain in the world, the peak was explored, reconnoitered and climbed all within one season. It was also climbed without the use of supplemental oxygen .
Hergog made the climb with four climbers total, Himself, Louis Lachenal, Gaston Rebuffat, and Lionel Terray. The four had to spend a night in a crevasse in the descent with one sleeping bag for all four climbers. Both summit climbers had chose light boots resulting in severe frostbite, with both climbers losing all of their toes. Herzog lost his gloves near the summit resulting in the loss of most of his fingers. The resulting gangrene required the expedition doctor to perform emergency amputations in the field without anaesthetic.
Upon Herzog's return, he wrote a best-selling book about the expedition. The climb caused a stir that was only surpassed by the climbing of Everest in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Annapurna was not climbed again until 1970, when the north and south faces we climbed at the same time by a British Army expedition in the North, and British climber Chris Bonington in the south. The mountain was not climbed again until 1977.
