Aaron Benson aaronbphoto on Wikimedia
Everest may be the highest mountain in the world, and K2 may be the most difficult, but neither peak has anything on Annapurna. There's a reason why this mountain is the least-climbed of all the eight-thousanders which make up the crown jewels of mountaineering. This mountain has a taste for blood.
Annapurna—technically Annapurna I—sits in the Himalayas, roughly 200 miles northwest of Everest. At 26,000 feet high, it's also quite a bit shorter. However, ask anyone who's brave enough to climb this mountain and they'll say that height is no indication of difficulty.
Put bluntly, this is a mountain that does not want to be climbed. Up until recently, climbers had a one-in-three chance that they wouldn't come back down. Today, the fatality rate is down to a measly 20%.
But what makes Annapurna so dangerous? Better question: what kind of person is brave (or reckless) enough to attempt the summit? Let's dive into it.
Expedition Triumphs And Tragedies
The first person to successfully scale Annapurna was Maurice Herzog. After failing to climb a slightly higher mountain, Dhaulagiri, Herzog decided to throw caution to the wind and go where literally no one had ever gone before. His attempt on Annapurna marked the first time Nepal permitted mountaineering.
Herzog and his team decided to make things more difficult by forgoing supplementary oxygen. Herzog lost his gloves in a crevasse and finished his descent bare handed. At one point, he was nearly strangled upside-down with his own rope.
Miraculously, Herzog and all his men survived. They'd endured avalanches, frostbite, and oxygen deprivation. Four men were swept into a crevasse and safely fished out the next day.
Unfortunately his safe descent also meant the end of Herzog's mountaineering career; he lost all his toes and most of his fingers to gangrene and frostbite. Undeterred, Herzog wrote a best-selling book about his ascent. He enjoyed his fame until three years later, an even taller mountain was climbed.
Herzog's expedition was the first time any of the eight-thousanders had been climbed. It was also the last time Annapurna would be climbed for 20 years. In 1970, a British expedition climbed the more perilous south face; this time, not everyone made it down.
What Makes Annapurna So Dangerous?
Just like how it isn't necessary the cold that gets you, but the wind, it isn't necessarily the altitude of these peaks that makes them deadly. Yes, the lack of oxygen and the bitter cold will get you, but they aren't the only things you have to worry about. There are plenty of ways for mountains to take down even the most experienced of climbers.
For starters, the higher up you are, the worse the weather is. This doesn't just mean freezing temperatures, it also means snowstorms and howling winds all year round. Conditions only get worse once as you ascend...and then you have to come back down.
Annapurna has one other ace up its sleeve: avalanches, which account for more than half of all deaths. Annapurna is incredibly prone to avalanches at a range unmatched throughout the Himalayas. Unlike Everest or K2, there aren't any routes up Annapurna that avoid avalanche zones.
Additionally, Annapurna and its surrounding rage are relatively secluded. Not only are you farther from civilization, but seeing other climbers is relatively rare. If something happens, there's a chance that nobody will ever know what happened to you—except, maybe, a yeti.
Between Herzog's initial summit in 1950 and March 2012, there were 191 total ascents of Annapurna and 61 deaths. Compare this to 223 deaths out of 5656 total ascents to Everest in the same period and you'll quickly understand why fame isn't the only reason Everest gets more foot traffic. You have a better chance of coming back down it!
The mountain is named after Annapurna, the Hindu goddess of food and nourishment. Ostensibly, the name derives from the many streams descending the mountain, which support agriculture. However, we'd argue that climbers are the real everlasting food for this deadly mountain.
