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Tim Macartney-Snape Is Struggling to Conquer His Toughest Challenge Yet — Reviving His Reputation

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Tim Macartney-Snape Is Struggling to Conquer His Toughest Challenge Yet — Reviving His Reputation The June 1999 edition of Inside Sport magazine published the following six-page profile on Tim Macartney-Snape. Profile by James Elder | Images by Arunas Tim Macartney-Snape is struggling to conquer his toughest challenge yet — reviving his reputation. Even among his fellow elite mountaineers, Tim Macartney-Snape is regarded as a climber of freakish ability. Twice he has stood on top of the world. Many times faced death. Always he has survived. Back in 1984, after he and his team became the first Australians to mount a successful Everest assault, it was written by a fellow climber that Macartney-Snape “constantly astounds colleagues by his determination, endurance and energy at very high altitude, and did so again on this mountain...” While his companions counted the heavy cost of their exploits—one was physically and mentally destitute for days, another suffered severe frostbite—it was only Macartney-Snape who returned unscathed. No falls, no frostbite. No fear. Image by Arunas by Image Six years after that historic achievement, Macartney-Snape did what no man had (nor has since) ever achieved. It had once been quipped that only after starting at sea level could a mountaineer lay true claim to conquering Everest’s 8874 metres. And so Macartney- Snape walked the 1000km from the Bay of Bengal to the foot of Everest before the serious climbing began. Incredibly, his ascent was without additional oxygen, and solo. Scores of climbers have died on their Everest quests, and many more have lost some parts of their extremities to frostbite. But instead of cruelly shortened fingers or toeless feet, the 43-year-old Macartney-Snape has two Orders of Australia to show for his pains. Arunas by Image These might be satisfying and fulfilled days for Australia’s most distinguished mountaineer. But they’re not. The mountain man has taken his most serious fall. Since the screening in 1995 of an ABC Four Corners program, which portrayed him negatively for his role with an organisation called the Foundation for Humanity’s Adulthood (FHA), Tim Macartney-Snape has nursed a shattered reputation. Prior to the screening of the Four Corners film, Macartney-Snape was a popular voice on the speaking circuit, especially in schools. But the program charged that he used his fame and the podium to recruit young people to the Foundation. www.humancondition.com/inside-sport-magazine-profile-of-tim-macartney-snape * indicates a link 2 World Transformation Movement “The FHA holds the view that we have a fundamental understanding of human nature which will help solve the problem of the human condition,” says Macartney-Snape. “That is, how we can be both selfless and selfish. We have ideas that I believe are worthy of debate.” Four Corners, Australia’s most respected current affairs program, presented the view that the Foundation was cultish and that recruits were torn from their families and futures. Soon after the program aired, demand for Macartney-Snape on the speaking circuit disappeared. He and the FHA subsequently complained to the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), and in February of last year the ABA found against Four Corners. The ABA ruled that the program was unbalanced, made inaccurate assertions (that Foundation founder Jeremy Griffith compared himself to Jesus Christ), and failed “to present the principal relevant viewpoints in relation to Mr Macartney-Snape’s role as guest speaker.” The ABA suggested the ABC might broadcast an apology. Four Corners stands by the program, and claims flaws in theABA process led to its finding. TheABC isn’t challenging the ruling, but no apology has been forthcoming. For a man who has conquered the most inhospitable terrain on Earth, the episode has taken Tim Macartney- Snape into unfamiliar territory. “It’s been incredibly hard,” he says. “I’ve lost income and reputation and all that sort of stuff. Yes, my standard of living took a battering and I’ve lost some friends because of it.” More than any other individual, his ability to cope with the travails of Nature is beyond question. It remains to be seen how he copes personally with this man-made storm. _______________________ It is another chapter in an extraordinary life. Born in Africa, Macartney-Snape spent the first eight years of his life in southern Tanzania, before being sent to boarding school in the north of the country. There his classrooms opened out to the 4500m volcano Mt Meru and, nearby, Mt Kilimanjaro. “Climbing just seemed like a fascinating thing to do,” he says. “I’ve Photograph by Tim Macartney-Snape Tim Photograph by always wanted to go up and see what was over the horizon, and the best way of A rare strength of mind and a freakish metabolism combine in Macartney-Snape doing that was to climb a hill.” www.humancondition.com/inside-sport-magazine-profile-of-tim-macartney-snape * indicates a link Inside Sport Profile: Tim Macartney-Snape 3 At 12, his father moved the family to rural Victoria. Schooled at Geelong Grammar, where outdoor education was a focus, Macartney-Snape took fervidly to bushwalking, cross-country skiing and climbing. By the time he was at university, Macartney- Snape had graduated to serious mountaineering. His rare climbing style began with Lincoln Hall 20 years ago. The two students from the Australian National University were with a group attempting to summit their first Himalayan climb, the 7066m Dunagiri. After six weeks of poor weather, the group leader decided the climb was off. They’d been forced to wait too long and the group was too tired. Macartney-Snape and Hall were sent up the mountain to retrieve the fixed ropes. As they climbed higher, Macartney- Snape says excitement took them over. “Bugger this,” they decided. “Let’s just go up and see what the summit ridge is like.” It was the best afternoon of the whole trip, yet between them they carried only a bivvy bag, one water bottle, a tin of John West cherries and a few dried apricots. Still short of the summit and with darkness looming, the pair were forced to spend the night on the mountain. Next day, an exhausted Hall stopped 150m from the summit. Macartney-Snape pushed on. By noon he had completed his first Himalayan ascent. Meanwhile, Hall’s leather boots and strap-on crampons were restricting the flow of blood to his feet. Frostbite was setting in. As for Macartney-Snape? “Tim’s just more resilient to the cold,” says Hall. “He just powered on.” By the time the pair got back Macartney-Snape Tim Photograph by to the fixed ropes they’d set out for, both were badly dehydrated and there was still a precarious walk ahead of them along the side of a gorge through a harrowing blizzard. Macartney-Snape went ahead and arrived at camp at 2am. Hall came five hours later and was then airlifted back to Australia, where he had a couple of toes amputated. “If you make a bad decision [while climbing], one of your options is death,” Macartney- Snape says, as if he’s talking about a bad day at the office. “That’s what makes climbing, and high-altitude climbing particularly, the pre-eminent physical challenge. There’s nothing else like it. It’s this combination of lack of oxygen, and the extreme situation, where if you make a mistake you’re dead. I thrive on the idea of digging deeper than you’ve ever had to dig before to make yourself keep going. That’s the ultimate climbing experience. No-one’s going to be able to come and rescue you; if you don’t keep going you’ll die, and if you’re not very careful about where you’re going you’re going to die as well. www.humancondition.com/inside-sport-magazine-profile-of-tim-macartney-snape * indicates a link 4 World Transformation Movement “If you don't push yourself and explore those boundaries, if you just lead a pampered existence, then your luxurious, pampered surroundings become meaningless.” “I like pushing myself to total exhaustion and the euphoria that comes with having achieved that,” he continues. “But it’s more than just endorphins running through the system, it’s the euphoria that comes through having overcome pain and hardship. If you don’t push yourself and explore those boundaries, if you just lead a pampered existence, then your luxurious, pampered surroundings become meaningless.” This is the Macartney-Snape maxim. His metabolism is his means. “He’s obviously got the right kind of background hormonal balance,” says Emeritus Professor of Physiology at the University of NSW, Paul Korner. “He’s a phenomenal mountaineer.” According to Korner, Macartney-Snape’s red blood cells probably metabolise more economically than his peers, allowing him more oxygen more readily. “He’s one of the strongest Himalayan climbers I’ve ever met, and I’ve met quite a few,” says his climbing colleague Greg Child, now living in Seattle. “He’s got this amazing success rate, having succeeded on most of the things he’s attempted. He takes to altitude incredibly well - he strides up the hill like a greyhound. He’s incredibly fit with great lungs. And he’s very calm: he takes all the scary, difficult, uncomfortable things that come at you on a mountain in his stride. He knows it’s coming, so when it comes he doesn’t seem bothered by it.” Lincoln Hall, another distinguished Australian mountaineer and climbing partner, agrees: “You can be incredibly determined and not able to handle it, but Tim’s got the mind and the metabolism for mountaineering, and you need both.
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