Zac Zaharias
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Lieutenant Colonel Zac Zaharias, retired senior Australian Army officer, veteran Australian mountain climber, adventurer and outdoor trainer. | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Australian |
| Born | 21 July 1956 |
| Climbing career | |
| Type of climber | Mountaineer |
| Major ascents | Mount Everest (2001) |
Lieutenant Colonel Zacharakis Zaharias, CSM (born 21 July 1956) is a retired senior Australian Army officer, veteran Australian mountain climber, adventurer and outdoor trainer. Zaharias was part of the Australian Army expedition that climbed Mount Everest in 2010. Zaharias was one of six Australians and two Britons who made it to the summit on 25 May 2010 with an expedition led by South Australian Duncan Chessell.[1] Zaharias is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon (1974–77) and has served with the Royal Australian Engineers, including appointments as Commanding Officer 5th Combat Engineer Regiment (5CER) and 5th Engineer Regiment (5ER), at the Australian Defence Force Academy, and with the United Nations.[2] Zaharias is the president of the Canberra Climbers Association.[3][4][5]
Zaharias is one of Australia's leading high altitude climbers, his first expedition to the Himalayas was in the early 1980s and he was a driving force of the Australian Army Alpine Club for many years.[4] He has participated in 17 major high altitude expeditions and has been leader or deputy leader on 13 of his expeditions. He has summited six of the world’s fourteen peaks above 8000 metres. His notable ascents include:[6]
- 2nd Australian ascent of Denali (6192m) in Alaska in 1982;
- 2nd ascent of the south-east face of Nilgiri North (7061m) in 1983;
- 1st Australian ascents of Broad Peak (8046m) in 1986 and Dhaulagiri I (8167m) in 1997;
- 1st ascent of the north face of Kedarnath (6940m) in 1991 on a joint Indo-Australian Military Expedition; and
- an ascent of Spantik Peak (7028m) in Pakistan in 2011 on an Australian-Pakistan Military Expedition.
On an expedition to Ganesh IV in 1981, Zaharias was with fellow climbers Maila Pemba, David Simpson and Jim Truscott who were left stranded, without equipment and "lucky to be alive" after the avalanche destroyed the camp two killing David Sloane.[7]
In 2001, on the Army Alpine Association expedition, one of the team members and two people accompanying him were killed in an avalanche while they were doing an acclimatisation trek in Nepal several hundred kilometres away from Everest.[8][9]