Tim Macartney-Snape
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Tim Macartney-Snape is a world renowned mountain climber and adventurer. On October 3rd 1984 Macartney-Snape and Greg Mortimer were the first Australians to reach the summit of Mount Everest. They reached the summit, without oxygen, via a new route on the North Face (North Face to Norton Couloir). In 1990, Macartney-Snape became the first person to walk and climb from Sea Level to the top of Mount Everest which he writes about in his book Everest: From Sea to Summit.
Tim Macartney-Snape was born on 5 January 1956 in Tanganikya (now Tanzania) where he lived on a farm with his British father and Irish mother. In 1967, the family moved to Australia, to a farm in north eastern Victoria. After attending Geelong Grammar School, Tim studied at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra where he joined the ANU Mountaineering Club (ANUMC) and obtained a BSc in between bushwalking, rock climbing and nordic skiing trips.
In 1978, Tim travelled to India as part of the ANUMC's expedition to Dunagiri (7,066 metres). After prolonged bad weather and several team members fell ill, the leader decided to abandon the expedition. Tim and Lincoln Hall volunteered to climb up to retrieve equipment and ropes that had been left in place for a summit attempt. But Tim was also thinking of making a dash for the summit if the weather cleared. They were in luck and reached the summit but then spent a night in the open without sleeping bags and were fortunate to survive a blizzard on their descent.