Friday, November 11, 2016

Remembering

Annapurna I was the first 8,000+ meter peak ever successfully climbed.  It was first summited by Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal of the famous French led expedition on June 3, 1950.  A number of other climbers have attempted Annapurna since the Herzog and Lachenal expedition, but it continues to be one of the world's most difficult 8,000+ meter peaks to climb and one of the deadliest.  Annapurna has the greatest fatality rate of all the fourteen 8,000+ meter peaks with the ratio of 34 deaths per 100 safe returns.  This calculates to about one out of every four people that attempts to summit Annapurna dies trying.  Their deaths are a testament to the challenges and dangers of Annapurna.



"The power of such a mountain is so great and yet so subtle that, without compulsion,
people are drawn to it from near and far, as if by the force of some invisible magnet..."

- The Way of the White Clouds, Lama Anagarika Govinda

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