As the summer of 1963 drew to a close, Fred was rock-climbing in eastern Oregon with Steve Marts and Eric Bjornstad. I first ran into Fred Beckey at the Banff Book and Film Festival in 1994, where he tried stealing my girlfriend (something he was known for). I think we were very bold doing our first major climbs in such desolate country. A little white bottle, plastic, I dont know, Nuprin. Helping people explore, conserve, learn about, and enjoy the lands and waters of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Andrea Long Chu on Desire, Weak Love, and Modern Trans Identity, Classic Krakauer: Essays on Wilderness and Risk. All rights reserved. I decide to leave from here as early as possible tomorrow to get Spirig down, if he is still alive by then. He was 94. The most serious blot on Beckeys good name occurred in the autumn of 1955, when he traveled to Nepal to attempt Lhotseat the time the highest unclimbed mountain on earthas part of a high-profile multinational expedition led by Dyhrenfurth. Fred has been holding it against us ever since. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. Beckey began exploring the North Cascades next, making first ascents up Mount Despair in 1939 and Forbidden Peak in 1940rugged mountains deemed unclimbable by the local mountaineering club. Beckey was a contemporary of Hugh Hefners, and he took the Playboy Philosophy as the gospel. Sadly, there are precious few documents of these trips. While Beckey was eating cold beansfrom a can on mountain walls nobody had ever heard of, Big Jim Whittaker became a household name and rode the post-Everest hoopla all the way into the loftiest circles of Camelot itself, the Kennedy White House. A journey to this lush, high altitude basin near the Zanskar had been a dream of mine since I was a teen, after I read a book of the same title by the Himalayan explorer Frank Smythe, and Fred was intent on making this dream come true for me. The film won over 26 international awards, including: the Best Feature Mountain Film at the 2017 Banff Mountain Film Festival; the Best Mountaineering Film at the 2017 Kendal Mountain Film Festival; and, the People's Choice Award at the 2017 Banff Mountain Book Festival. By the time our twelve years together had ended at his death that October we had explored thousands of wild miles and treacherous mountain passages. That same year, he and friends climbed 35 peaks. The topo showed two bolts on the last pitch, one of which was just a few meters off the belay. WebMegan Bond, Beckeys dear friend and biographer, explained to me that Beckey detested the word, equating it with bum. He ticked off spots across the country, scoring (probably) his final first ascent in Wind River Ridge, Wyoming, in 1997. After wed crossed the border into British Columbia and were almost into the mountains, Fred finally told me what it was: Slesse Mountain.. . As time went on, he decided that climbing was his life's focus. [9][2] Consequently although Beckey seemed a likely choice as a member for first American Everest Expedition in 1963, he was never invited by his ex-teammates. By 1939, he had joined the Seattle Mountaineers. Beckey had been to the foot of the route twice before, a prow of smooth black diorite that soared more than a vertical half-mile from the forested valley. In this feature from Mountaineer magazine, Megan Bond remembers the love for adventure that she shared with legendary climber Fred Beckey, and how hard it was to say goodbye. He was in his early eighties, also alone, and stalling when our paths crossed. I wonder whats going through Freds mind as he gazes off, silent now, at the glut of dizzying topography that surrounds us. Freds partnerships were made by actually speaking with other human beings, either face to face or on the telephone. The climbing was devious and desperate. WebFred Beckey was born on January 14, 1923 in Dsseldorf, Germany as Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey. Afterwards, his family signed him up with the Boy Scouts[6] where he learned the basic concepts of climbing. He had made multiple trips to the Himalaya and was also anxious to return. Fred beckey is the legendary american dirtbag mountaineer whose name is spoken in hushed tones around campfires. He went for a rather vertical wander, climbing Boulder Peak in the process. He wrote the original guidebooks for the North Cascades (the Cascade Alpine Guides, published by Mountaineers Books), and is noted as one of Americas most colorful and eccentric mountaineers." They turned him down, and the American Alpine Club agreed to print a few thousand copies for a flat fee. By noon, however, when we reach the base of the 200-foot summit pyramid, the wind has quit, the surrounding glaciers are gleaming in the cold sunlight, and Beckeys spirits seem to be picking up. As a full-time nomadic climber for roughly eight decades, Fred Beckey, who died in late 2017, almost certainly roped up with more individual climbing partners than any other human being. I first ran into Fred Beckey at the Banff Book and Film Festival in 1994, where he tried stealing my girlfriend (something he was known for). His favorite way to do the latter, because it was free, was to dial up a long-distance operator in whatever Podunk burg happened to be near whatever mountain he wanted to climb next, and sweet-talk her into looking out the window and telling him if it was cloudy. I had just chosen this route on the suggestion of friend Id met three years prior, while out toproping in Leavenworth with Fred. Congratulations To Our 2022 Volunteer Award Recipients! A scruffy stooped figured, raw boned, flying hair. There really is a Black Book. Those margins where a lone woman might find herself in jeopardy gave way to less peril and I was now out of harms way. The weather never let them. Beckey was a contemporary of Hugh Hefners, and he took the Playboy Philosophy as the gospel. I know a lot of you have! It was late afternoon and he was coming out of a Jasper bakery. You can tell what really bothers Fred because thats the stuff he never mentions, says Sybil Goman, who has gotten as close to Beckey as perhaps a person can. Thanks to Timothy Egan's book "The Good Rain," the legend hasbecome known of how fifty years ago, Fred Beckey fell in lovewith a young woman with a Greek sounding name. SEATTLE (AP) Legendary mountain climber Fred Beckey, who wrote dozens of books and is credited with notching more first ascents than any other American mountaineer, has died. Beckey descended in the blizzard to get help, but was later blamed by his teammates for abandoning his partner, who was rescued by others. Later he joined The Mountaineers club. The first winter ascent of Sahale, Jesus Christ, I dont know.. . What makes me, in a recent particular case, want to blindly pad up runout mossy slabs in the dark, with more and more damp, grainy granite between me and the safety of that last bolt? In the clip below, Fred Beckey is in Basalt, Colorado, where hed been staying with the author, Cameron M. Burns, and his wife, Ann, for about 10 days before Burns and Beckey jetted off to Zion in April 2000. His list of first ascents on the American Alpine Club website continues for thirteen pages. Fred made a formative approach and climb with his brother Helmy in the summer of 1940. We shared nearly every day of every year, either in the wilds or the city, and occasionally by phone if one of us was away, but we remained connected to one another in either world. Thats not the Beckey we saw in our home, said Washington Climbers Coalition co-founder Matt Perkins, who described a well-mannered, well-groomed figure who handled flatware with lan. Fred was born Wolfgang Gottfried Beckey in Dsseldorf, Germany in 1923. As a full-time nomadic climber for roughly eight decades, Fred Beckey, who died in late 2017, almost certainly roped up with more individual climbing partners than any other human being. Thanks to his single-minded focus, Beckey has achieved a kind of quirky, enduring magnificence to which attention must be paid. And if you have, there is undoubtedly some story or tidbit you have to share for Megan and Alex's effort. FAs with Eric Bjornstad [23] 1970 South Face of Charlotte Dome, III 5.7, FA with Galen Rowell, Chris Jones [3] 1972 Moses, Canyonlands with Eric Bjornstad [24] [18] 1989 South Buttress, Caliban Peak, Arrigetch Peaks, Alaska [18] WebBeckey, like so many people of great accomplishment, is a controversial figure, having alienated fellow climbers by stealing their routes (and even their girlfriends). Id done very little pitch-black climbing with just a headlamp. Megan, This is a brilliant tribute to friendship, adventure, mountaineering, to two lives well-lived--and to the legendary Fred Beckey. You can tell what really bothers Fred because thats the stuff he never mentions, says Sybil Goman, who has gotten as close to Beckey as perhaps a person can. We drove through the night, Bjornstad remembers. Megan Bond March 23, 2021 2 Comments While traveling solo to remote and wild places, I had been in some dicey situations. His volume The Mountains of North America and Mount McKinley: Icy Crown of North America is still popular today. What isn't known is how his monomaniacal drive to climb and document sometime got Fred into hairy situations. They went away empty-handed. [2] In 1942, the teenage Beckey brothers snatched a second ascent of Mount Waddington, which was then considered the most difficult climb in North America. His affairs have orbited so tightly around the hot sun of cutting-edge climbing that virtually everything else was long ago scorched from his existence. The three-volume set is still in print and is currently in its third edition. The ascent generated two sentences of minuscule type in Sports Illustrated that September, buried on a back page, where a postage-stamp-size picture of Beckey ran in the Faces in the Crowd column beneath a picture of a nurse from Brooklyn whod landed a 94-pound tuna. Bjornstad concurs, adding that Fred never mentioned his feelings about being excluded from the Everest trip, simply wouldnt talk about it, but it was obvious that it bothered him deeply. The night before their summit attempt, Freds partner Bruno Sprig developed cerebral edema at twenty-three thousand feet. The idea of Beckey as an American original is a fitting one. And while a surfing accident three years ago has left him temporarily out of action, there is no subject hed rather write about than the great outdoors. Guidebooks Beckey continued to write throughout his career. Fred Beckey is a bridge to the roots of the American climbing scene. Beckey, who is quick to confess that he isnt a morning person, is not a pretty sight. In the mid-1940s, Beckeys eye turned to peaks further afield (and Helmy retired from mountaineering). Over the ensuing summers, he pioneered routes up dozens more Cascadian peaks, sometimes with his brother Helmy in tow. Bjornstad concurs, adding that Fred never mentioned his feelings about being excluded from the Everest trip, simply wouldnt talk about it, but it Some say it was 1946, when he pushed Alaskan mountaineering to a bold new plane by making the first ascent of an immense stone digit called the Devils Thumb. If you're a new email subscriber, your discount code will be waiting for you. Fred had beat-back death on more than one occasion: sometimes by luck, usually by skill, but more recently by sheer stubbornness. The Mountaineers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. As late as 2000, deep into his seventies, Fred Beckey was still going on expeditions with his close friend, Cameron Burns. Hed even meet strangers in person at a climbing area, speak with them about climbing, and then just go climbing. Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey (14 January 1923 30 October 2017), known as Fred Beckey, was an American rock climber, mountaineer and book author, who in seven decades of climbing achieved hundreds of first ascents of some of the tallest peaks and most important routes throughout Alaska, the Canadian Rockies and the Pacific Northwest. Ive seen it. Regardless, he insisted we were heading to the Garhwal in the Northern India State of Uttarakhand, and the Bhyundar Valley, known as the Valley of Flowers. Fred sought out North Americas last unclimbed peaks in Canada, Alaska, and the Pacific Northwest. As companions and the best of friends, we had traipsed through literal hell-and-high-water, enduring lowland floods, mountain storms, and had trucks and buses break down on eroding roads at high-altitudes in Tibet and Nepal. Of this expedition, Fred would later tell Chris Jones of Mountain magazine: That trip Helmy and I made into the Pickets in 1940 was one of roughest. Its beyond our remit to say what Beckeys legacy is. Id lowered Fred down from the wall into a dusty and smiling heap below the slab, listening to him talk about wanting to get back up there and give it another go, when a dark haired solo climber cautiously walked over. His contribution to the American Alpine Journal was also immense, creating over 20 feature articles and hundreds of commentary pieces. He would have been fine with just a knife and a blanket. Why did he embrace such a life. Vasiliki Dwyer, described by Beckey friends as his one who got away, got to know a different side of the climber. The climbing world attracts all kinds of characters. The closest thing he has to a home is a secondhand Volkswagen with 400,000 miles on it. And the tab for Beckeys formidable obsession might finally be coming due, at the age of 69. By writing meticulous guidebooks and magazine articles, establishing outstanding new routes and giving reports and photos to the American Alpine Journal, he inspired countless adventures and friendships among people whom he never met, and who havent yet been born or picked up a carabiner. For most of his life, and well into his middle age, Fred had been a torpedo, outdistancing climbers half his age who struggled to keep up with him. Photo by Dave OLeske. The road trip also became a staple for Fred Beckey. Fred Beckey just went climbing for seventy-five years or so. He was an expert on both rock and ice, had alpine experience, and had been to the Himalayas. says: Rebecca Chamberlain We shared jokes and wordplay, and everything from meals to secrets to books and warm clothes. There are also unsubstantiated rumors that he found a crashed airplane full of cash and gold bullion on one of his early expeditions! By the time the sun has risen above the serrated eastern skyline, Beckey, Mark Bebiea frequent ropemate of Fredsand I are out of the tent, bundled against the cold, and starting to climb. the list goes on and on. This confidence would allow Fred and Helmy (who were still teenagers at the time) to take on their most daunting challenge in 1942. He has shared a rope with many of the premier climbers of the ageYvon Chouinard, Layton Kor, Fritz Wiessner, Royal Robbins, Heinrich Harrerand his creations include a disproportionate number of the most remarkable climbs in North America. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. Fred had struggled with this hearing loss for twenty years, which by then had become rather acute, but for some reason he could hear my voice, or at least intuit with ease what I communicated. I was in Seattle, and making plans again, enthused about another return to the collar of the Indian Subcontinent; it was here I met Fred. Or, in other words, someone who always finds a way to put rock climbing first often without any need or desire for recognition. [16][2], Timothy Egan captures Fred Beckey's personality in a chapter of The Good Rain. The post-monsoon weather was grim that fall, hammering the high Himalaya with gale after violent gale. Bjornstad concurs, adding that Fred never mentioned his feelings about being excluded from the Everest trip, simply wouldnt talk about it, but it In this way, Freds presence protected me on our far-flung travels and in return I kept him going. SEATTLE (AP) Legendary mountain climber Fred Beckey, who wrote dozens of books and is credited with notching more first ascents than any other American mountaineer, has died. This article originally appeared in our Spring 2021 issue ofMountaineerMagazine. Between its well-thumbed covers is a top secret, continually updated catalogue of the planets finest unclimbed mountaineering routes: the highest, steepest, most extravagantly sculpted chunks of vertical ground that have yet to be groped by chalk-smeared human hands. His partners would then often connect when Fred didnt (or eventually couldnt) keep pace with his own ambitions and frenetic goals. None of us can understand this, a dismayed Dyhrenfurth wrote in his journal. Those partners include essentially every prominent alpine and rock climber in the USA and Canada from the 1930s to the 1990s. Ever. Our speed decelerated in those later years. It had only been summited once in 1936 by William House and Fritz Weissner. After a disastrous experience with an international attempt at climbing Lhotse, Beckey was put off international expeditions. And his enthusiasm for this one activity was enough to carry him through life. And it confirmed that they could tough it out. We had a blast. It also shows that behind Freds veneer of a foul-mouthed contrarian was a keen intellect. In that same summer of 1939, Fred, Clint Kelley, and Llyod Anderson made the first ascent of Mount Despair in the Cascades. He was eager to explore, and vibrated with restless energy and a brilliant mind. The weather held, though, and the following day, as Beckey later wrote, A few more pitches, all broken and reasonable climbing, put us on the summitvery, very happy. Here are the details: We are asking for your written contributions for a "Tribute Book" : a collaborative gift from anyone who has known Fred, climbed with Fred, or experienced mountain-life or trail life with Fred . Anything he considered superfluous, like a toothbrush, was not worth taking. He would accompany Beckey on many of his early adventures in search of new routes. Through a lifetime of dedication and commitment to his passion, Fred had studied and climbed mountains the world over, creating new routes, and ascending rock walls and monoliths that challenge his followers to this day. He worked as a guidebook writer. He felt obliged to make up for the pace of our journeys not being swift and quick, and would mutter the dictum to me as much as for himself: If you want to go fast, go alone. Why did he embrace such a life. Sometimes I was even right. Last night, after arriving at our campsite, Bebie and I decided the original goal was too distant to be practical, and consequently, After more than an hour of heated argument, Bebie and I prevailed. That same year, he and friends climbed 35 peaks. I learned it from my wife, back home in Washington State, when Id called asking her to google the words how to descend Liberty Cap. I had no idea how to get down from the dark summit, which loomed a pitch above, but I thought we had our route in the bag. Fred Beckey was a legendary Northwest climber, environmentalist, historian, and Mountaineers Books author. Check out our international portal in order to check out with up to date currency and inventory, Find Your Country No thanks, Stay on this page. You got any aspirin on you? On his second journey to Alaska, Fred climbed Devils Thumb and Kates Needle both first ascents. While the film delves into those peccadilloes, it is ultimately an affectionate portrait of a remarkable man in the sunset of his career. Beyond our remit to say what Beckeys legacy is such desolate country and friends 35., Nuprin hundreds of commentary pieces and Mount McKinley: Icy Crown North. Face to face or on the American Alpine Club website continues for thirteen pages us can understand this a. Seventies, fred was born Wolfgang Gottfried Beckey in Dsseldorf, Germany in 1923 as as! Sun of cutting-edge climbing that virtually everything else was Long ago scorched from his existence by House... 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