THE CONQUERORS
100 Geelong Region All-Time International Sports Greats and Brownlow Medallists
CHAMPIONS GALLERY
TIM MACARTNEY-SNAPE (Mountain Climbing): Born January 5, 1956, Iringa, Tanganyika (now Tanzania). As the first Australian to climb Mt. Everest, the humble Tim was invited to address a packed assembly hall of students, teachers and dignitaries at Geelong Grammar on October 31, 1993. The surroundings were familiar to the 37-year-old mountaineer; he attended the iconic educational institution in the early 1970s and revelled in the outdoor pleasures of Timbertop, the school’s high-altitude paradise in the Victorian Alps, a venue made famous by the likes of former illustrious pupils Prince Charles and State Governor/world mile record-breaker John Landy.
After introducing himself with customary acknowledgements, Macartney- Snape said: “My invitation to speak here is an honour I deeply appreciate. There are at least two consequences of my climbing activities that are in some respects unfortunate.
“One is that I’ve become a symbol of achievement to others and am given a cloak of respectability that is more decorous than deserved. With respectability comes responsibility and though my inclination compels me to wear that as best I can, it brings me to the next, perhaps unfortunate consequence: I get asked to stand in places such as this where the weight of my predecessors, invariably so much more eminent than I, bears heavily on my slightness.”
With his thought-provoking views on greed, leadership, childhood, sensitivity, money, conscience, courage, the soul, non-conformity, false idealism and other life-troubling issues, the assembled gathering sat in awe of the sublimely-adventurous role model who struggled without bottled oxygen to Everest’s summit (29,000ft-8850 metres) on October 3, 1984. He was accompanied by the Sydneysider Greg Mortimer and the expedition was especially notable because the climbers tackled the challenge via a new route on the North Face.
In 1990, Macartney-Snape upstaged even himself; he became the first person to walk and climb from sea-level to the Everest peak, again unsupported by extra oxygen. Rather than take off from the customary starting point at Kathmandu, at 1400 metres, his adventure — backed by Australian Geographic — began at Ganga Sagar in India. He stepped 1200m to the Nepalese border before battling frightful weather, avalanches, headaches, diarrhoea, nausea, semi-starvation and a near-fatal accident — reaching the earth’s highest point at 9.45 a.m. on May 11, an extraordinary three months-long feat.
Macartney-Snape was a founding director and is patron of the World Transformation Movement; he is also patron of the Outdoor Council of Australia. His early background no doubt fuelled his passion for adventure. Tim’s British father and Irish mother were pioneering farmers in Tanganyika, location of the mystical Mt. Kilimanjaro — Africa’s highest peak at 5895 metres. The family migrated to Australia in 1967 and settled on a rural property at Benalla in North-Eastern Victoria.
The rangy Tim attended Geelong Grammar for five years, from 1969-73, and was a member of the school’s endurance hiking section and Cadet Corps. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology at Canberra’s Australia National University and was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 1988; and an AM in ‘92. He is an avid humanitarian, wonderfully-entertaining keynote speaker and prolific writer. He lives on a highland property South-West of Sydney and is still a regular climber in the nearby Blue Mountains.
In his 1993 Geelong Grammar speech, he remarked: “I’m ashamed to say that I must have had one of the lowest final year English marks ever at GGS. Now I make part of my living from writing and I recently received ‘Best Writer of the Year’ award from Australian Geographic. It’s not ability that got me there but a lot of perseverance and a bit of feeling.”