American climbing icon Fred Beckey, responsible for dozens of first ascents, dies aged 94
The climber who put up dozens of new routes and was the first to reach peaks throughout the Pacific northwest in the 1940s and 1950s passes away
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.
He was 94.
Megan Bond, a close friend who managed his affairs, told Associated Press that Beckey died of natural causes in her Seattle home on Monday.
“He was an extraordinary mountaineer. He also had a personality and humour that almost dwarfed the mountains around him,” Bond said. “He was a brilliant writer. He was a scholar. He lived based on what was important to him, and he was not going to sell out.”
Beckey was known as much for his eccentric personality as for his singular obsession with climbing.
