Annapurna I Expedition

          Annapurna is derived from Sanskrit word, which literally means "Sustenance", but in general, Annapurna is translated as Goddess of the Harvests, fertility & agriculture. Moreover, according to Hindu religion Annapurna is an incarnation of goddess Durga.
Being climbed by M. Herzog & L. Lachenal in 1950 as a first eight thousand meters peak to be climbed, annapurna I summits was the highest summit attained on earth for three years, until the first successful ascent of Mt. Everest.
The south face of Annapurna I (8,091 meters) 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 ice-pillar 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 expedition was also remarkable for being composed entirely of women. 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. (Vera Watson was the wife of computer scientist John McCarthy.)[5]
On 3 February 1987, Polish climbers Jerzy Kukuczka and Artur Hajzer made the first winter ascent of Annapurna I.
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.