Another oldie who has no intention of settling into his slippers is explorer Ranulph Fiennes. At 72, having suffered two heart attacks and double bypass surgery in 2003, he is now more than halfway to completing the Global Reach Challenge in aid of Marie Curie – to become the first person to climb each continent’s highest mountain and cross both polar ice caps. He has already crossed both polar ice caps and climbed Mount Everest in Asia, Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, Mount Elbrus in Europe and Mount Vinson in Antarctica. This week he will attempt to climb Aconcagua, South America’s highest mountain. The low oxygen levels at the peak will be particularly challenging as he suffers from a respiratory condition. To complete the feat he still needs to summit Mount Carstensz in Australasia, and Denali, the highest peak in North America.
Born 7 March 1944 12.30pm Windsor, England, he has a 10th house Sun in Pisces (a common explorer’s sign) which is square a hard edged, fiercely-disciplined Mars Saturn in Gemini. He also has Pluto conjunct a leadership North Node in Leo on the focal point of a mini-Grand Trine to Uranus and Neptune. Prince Charles described him as ‘mad and marvellous’ and his mother said when he was growing up she knew he’d either be ‘mad or bad.’ Impossible doesn’t seem to cross his mind.
His Moon Jupiter in Leo are opposition Venus in Aquarius; and sextile his Mars Saturn, softening a few of his rougher Mars Saturn edges.
It’s a chart which strangely lacks Earth signs, given the physical endurance required for such dangerous and stamina-stretching expeditions. But both his get-it-together 5th Harmonic and his strength-and-stubbornness 8th Harmonic have Earth Grand Trines and both feature Jupiter, which has brought him extraordinary luck on what appeared to be semi-suicidal exercises. His superhuman, death-defying-fortitude 16th is also strongly aspected.
His first wife, Ginny, 9 July 1947, a childhood sweetheart, who died in 2004, prompted him to start his high-risk career and helped organise his trips. She was a Sun Cancer with a Pisces Moon conjunct his Sun so a strong resonance. Her Saturn was conjunct his Pluto North Node which could have made a normal marriage difficult but together they could co-operate on large-scale enterprises. His trans-globe expedition took seven years planning. Her Mars in Gemini was conjunct his Uranus; and his Mars Saturn conjunct her Uranus – which in a 24/7 bourgeois lifestyle would have been a disaster, hugely volatile. But it suited their high-excitement life, often separated.
I’m not sure of his schedule, but I’d imagine he’ll have to slow down by 2018 when tr Neptune is conjunct his Sun, then moving on to square his Saturn Mars.