Re-exammines the world's first ascent of an 8000-meter peak by Maurice Herzog, and discovers what was originally hailed as a dramatic tale of courage, survival, and teamwork, was actually a much darker, more ambiguous journey. The climax of Maurice Herzog's mountaineering classic, Annapurna , is at the moment of descent, when Herzog and Louis Lachenal tumble from the 26,493-foot frozen summit. Herzog loses his gloves and the two barely reach camp with dead hands and feet. This is also the point where Herzog's tale falls apart, writes David Roberts, and it has taken nearly 50 years to uncover the real story behind the nationalist-tinged French expedition in 1950. Roberts, himself a climber of some accomplishment who admits to worshipping the heroics of the Annapurna team as a youth, traveled around the world interviewing friends and family of the team members (all deceased, save for Herzog), and chasing down original manuscripts and diaries of the three team members to get the story straight. His findings do not reveal the fearless, selfless leader Herzog painted himself to be in his famous book and subsequent writings. Roberts reconstructs the trip to Annapurna beginning on the Heathrow runway: as the widowed Francoise Rebuffat recalls, Herzog required his highly experienced teammates--Louis Lachenal, Lionel Terray, and Gaston Rebuffat--to sign a contract that granted him full leadership of the expedition, along with rights to publish any and all accounts of the trip for five years following their return. Conflicting stories to Herzog's "official" account begin from that moment. Herzog writes of his team's indefatigable support and loyalty to their leader, but in reality discord nearly crippled the success of the climb. In order to preserve the reputation he built for himself in Annapurna , Herzog, throughout his life, censored any account of the trip authored by the other team members, even "editing" Lachenal's posthumously published climbing memoir, Carnets de Vertige . While the dissection of Herzog's ego here is expected, Roberts discovers that none of his heroes are what he thought they were. "More rounded," he surmises, and ultimately better for it. Equal parts memoir, climbing lore, investigative journalism, and biography, Roberts provides the missing dimensions of the climb and the three extraordinary climber's lives--Lachenal, Terray, and Rebuffat--that Herzog so tirelessly strove to conceal. --Lolly Merrell Almost half a century after its publication, Maurice Herzog's Annapurna endures as the best-selling mountaineering book ever written. It is the story of how Herzog, Louis Lachenal, Gaston Rebuffat, and Lionel Terry first conquered this 26,493' Himalayan summitDthe highest mountain ever climbed at the time. Herzog and Lachenal reached the summit in 1950 after much hardship and on their return endured severe frostbite and the amputation of toes and fingers. Herzog dictated the book from his hospital bed after being proclaimed a national French hero. In his own attempt to retell their story, Roberts (A Newer World) uses original diaries discovered recently and extensive modern-day interviews to piece together an account of the expedition that is certainly less idealistic than Annapurna would have us believe. Contrary to Herzog's narrative, the members of the expedition were made to sign a document swearing allegiance to their leader, agreeing not to publish an account of the expedition for five years after its conclusion. Roberts, an avid climber himself, beautifully describes the climbing careers of all the members of the expedition, who have been his heroes since his first reading of the original classic. Well written and researched, this book is sure to be popular in public libraries. -DJohn Kenny, San Francisco P.L. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. A former true believer discovers that Maurice Herzog’s best-selling Annapurna (a stirring, romantic account of the first ascent of an 8,000-meter peak in the Himalayas) left out some of the adventure’s nastier details and some of the team’s more rancorous moments.Roberts, a mountaineer and author of outdoor adventure books (Escape Routes, 1997, etc.), once ranked Annapurna as the best account ever written of a mountaineering expedition. Now he sees Herzog’s version as a “gilded myth” at odds with the facts. He examines the original account by Louis Lachenal, who accompanied Herzog to the summit in 1950 and whose posthumous 1956 memoirs had been carefully edited by Herzog and his brother. He also reviews a recently published biography of Gaston Rebuffat, another member of the expedition, whose letters home to his wife and whose marginal notes on Herzog’s account were especially revealing. Comparing Lachenal’s edited and unedited texts, Roberts quotes numerous changes to show how they had been shaped to make them jibe with Herzog’s version of events. In Herzog’s telling, the team was held together by a strong bond of loyalty t