SEATTLE — 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 The Associated Press that Beckey died of natural causes in his Seattle home Monday.
“He was an extraordinary mountaineer. He also had a personality and humor 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.”
He was born in Germany and immigrated to the U.S. as a child. His family settled in Seattle, where he got his first taste of hiking and scrambling with the Boy Scouts and later The Mountaineers club.
In 1942, he and his younger brother Helmut wowed the climbing community with a second ascent of Mount Waddington in British Columbia.
He went on to accomplish hundreds of first ascents on peaks throughout the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, Canada and Wyoming. In 1954, he established new routes on three of Alaska’s mountains: McKinley, Deborah and Hunter. He also climbed in the Himalayas and China.
“Fred got the golden age of climbing first ascents,” Alex Bertulis, a former climbing partner said. “That will be his legacy.”
He authored more than a dozen books, including the three-volume “Cascade Alpine Guide” that details hundreds of peaks in Washington state.
Bond said they were planning a spring trip to the Himalayas and she was working on arranging porters to carry Beckey.
Beckey is survived by his younger brother Helmut. Beckey will be buried in private services this weekend, Bond said. A public memorial service will be scheduled in November.
