Snowy Mountains

The Snowy Mountains (The Snowy) are the tallest Australian mountain range and contain Australia's tallest mountain, [Mount Kosciuszko]? at 2228 metres above sea level. Explored in 1835 and feeding the Snowy?, Murrumbidgee? and Murray rivers, the mountain range is host to a low laying type of pine tree suspected of being the worlds oldest living organism. They are also thought to have had Aboriginal occupation for twenty thousand years; and are the center of the Australian snow industry during the winter months.

Yet the Snowy Mountains are perhaps best known for the [Snow Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme]?, a project begun in 1949 employing a hundred thousand men, two-thirds of whom came from thirty other countries during the post-World War II years. Socially this project symbolises a period during which Australia became a "melting pot" of the twentieth century but which also changed Australia's character and increased its appreciation for a wide range of cultural diversity.

By 1974, 145 kilometres of underground tunnels and 80 kilometres of aqueducts connected the 16 dams, 7 power stations (2 underground), and one pumping station. By 1967 the [American Society of Engineers]? rated the Snowy Scheme as one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world. Though the principles of Hydroelectricity are simple, this project provided a cornerstone of Australian industry and cultural change during the second half of the twentieth centry.