Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal, members of the French Annapurna expedition, became the first climbers to reach the summit of a peak higher than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) above sea level.

Maurice André Raymond Herzog was a French mountaineer and administrator who was born in Lyon, France. He led the 1950 French Annapurna expedition that first climbed a peak over 8000m, Annapurna, in 1950, and reached the summit with Louis Lachenal. Upon his return, he wrote a best-selling book about the expedition, Annapurna.

Louis Lachenal, a French climber born in Annecy, Haute-Savoie, was one of the first two mountaineers to climb a summit of more than 8,000 meters. On 3 June 1950 on the 1950 French Annapurna expedition, along with Maurice Herzog, he reached the summit of Annapurna I in Nepal at a height of 8,091 m (26,545 ft). Previously he had made the second ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in 1947, with Lionel Terray. He died falling into a snow-covered crevasse while skiing the Vallee Blanche in Chamonix. The mountain Pointe Lachenal in the Mont Blanc massif was named after him.

The 1950 French Annapurna expedition, led by Maurice Herzog, reached the summit of Annapurna I at 8,091 metres (26,545 ft), the highest peak in the Annapurna Massif. The mountain is in Nepal and the government had given permission for the expedition, the first time it had permitted mountaineering in over a century. After failing to climb Dhaulagiri I at 8,167 metres (26,795 ft), the higher peak nearby to the west, the team attempted Annapurna with Herzog and Louis Lachenal, reaching the summit on 3 June 1950. It was only with considerable help from their team that they were able to return alive, though with severe injuries following frostbite.

The eight-thousanders are the 14 mountains recognized by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) with summits that are 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) above sea level and are sufficiently independent of neighbouring peaks. There is no agreed definition of 'independence', and at times, the UIAA has considered whether the list should be expanded to 20 peaks by including the major satellite peaks of eight-thousanders. All of the eight-thousanders are located in the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges in Asia, and their summits lie in the altitude range known as the death zone.