Fred Beckey

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Fred Beckey 90 years old

Fred Beckey (born January 14, 1923 in Düsseldorf as Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey ; † October 30, 2017 in Seattle ) was a German-American mountaineer and author who "shaped and driven American mountaineering for decades". He made hundreds of first ascents. In Canada and Alaska he climbed the most difficult mountains for the first time, including Mount Deborah (with Heinrich Harrer ), Devils Thumb and Mount Hunter .

biography

Wedgwood Rock in Seattle, child is holding a 1 yard yardstick

Wolfgang Beckey, who called himself Fred as a boy , was the son of the surgeon Klaus H. Beckey and the opera singer Marta Maria Beckey. The family emigrated to Seattle in 1925 . Fred Beckey learned climbing and mountaineering as a Boy Scout and in a climbing course with Lloyd Anderson, a young member of the mountaineering club The Mountaineers . The training boulder was the seven meter high "Big Rock" or "Wedgwood Rock", an erratic block on 28th Avenue, where old Indian paths crossed before Seattle was built. Today climbing on the boulder in the middle of the city is forbidden.

Early years

Together with Anderson and Clint Kelley, Beckey managed the first ascent of Mount Despair in 1939 , a summit in North Cascade National Park in Washington state that the Mountaineers had considered impossible to climb. In 1940 Fred Beckey and his brother Helmut climbed Forbidden Peak in the northern Cascade Mountains for the first time together with Anderson, Dave Lind and Jim Crooks , followed by the second ascent of the difficult Mount Waddington in British Columbia in 1942 (after the first ascent by Fritz Wiessner in 1936 ). In 1945 he climbed Mount Shuksan (first climbed in 1908) on the Price Glacier in the northern Cascades, and in the decades that followed almost systematically in the Cascade Mountains and in the neighboring mountains of Canada, one unclimbed peak after another.

The great ascents

The first ascent of Devils Thumb on the border between Alaska and Canada was made by Fred Beckey, Bob Craig and Clifford Schmidtke on August 25, 1946. They reached the mountain from the Flood Glacier further east. Their ascent route led over the south wall and the east ridge to the summit. This began a series of first-time ascents, some of which were sensational, in the inaccessible mountain areas of Alaska, British Columbia and the north-west of the United States. In between he lived for four years in Los Angeles and made many first ascents in the California Sierra , then two years in Portland , where he - with visits to the libraries on the east coast (National Library in Washington and others) - prepared his large monograph on the cascade chain. He then returned to Seattle, where he lived until his death.

His most notable endeavors are:

  • Nooksack Tower , North Cascades, 1946, first ascent
  • Liberty Bell , North Cascades, September 27, 1946, first ascent of what is now known as the Beckey Route by Fred Beckey with Jerry O'Neil and Charles Welsh.
  • North Peak of the Liberty Bell Group, North Cascades, 1947
  • Mount Baker volcano in 1948, North Cascades, first over the north ridge
  • Mount Deborah , Eastern Alaska Range , June 19, 1954, first ascent by Fred Beckey with Henry Meybohm and Heinrich Harrer over the south ridge
  • Mount Hunter , 1954, Eastern Alaska Range, 1954, first ascent by Fred Beckey with Henry Meybohm and Heinrich Harrer
  • Mount Hood , 1959, Oregon, Yocum Ridge
  • South Howser Tower, 1961, Beckey-Chouinard Route, Canada
  • Mount Stuart , 1963, entire north ridge, North Cascades
  • Cathedral Peak , 1968, South Face, North Cascades
  • Beckey's Spire , 1970, Arizona
  • Mount Beckey , 1996, Alaska

He climbed other difficult mountains, such as the highest mountain in America, Denali (Mount MacKinley, five times), and opened up a myriad of climbing routes of the upper difficulty levels in the western United States.

Himalayas

Beckey took part in an international Himalayan expedition led by Norman Dyhrenfurth in 1955 . The expedition was unsuccessful because of bad weather. His tent partner developed brain edema in a high camp, and Beckey dismounted in the snowstorm, according to his own account, to get help and, exhausted and snow-blind, was rescued by his comrades. He was later accused of leaving his sick partner Bruno Spirig helpless.

Other American Himalayan expeditions, such as the first in 1963, no longer invited Beckey to participate. This encouraged him to concentrate on the mountains of North America, and also in what he, rebellious and solitary, preferred anyway: Long before Reinhold Messner , he overran the most remote and inaccessible mountains of the arctic wilderness in small teams without the one in the 1950s the usual logistical effort of the mammoth expeditions at the time. In this Beckey was a forerunner of later tendencies.

Beckey as a mountain writer

In the late 1940s he wanted to publish a guide on the Cascade Range with the Mountaineers, but because of his idiosyncrasy and intransigence , he was no longer friendly to the club. However, his Climber's Guide to the Cascade and Olympic Mountains of Washington subsequently appeared at the American Alpine Club as the first of his publications. He was later accepted again by The Mountaineers . Beckey received a degree in business administration (Bachelor of Business Administration) at the University of Seattle in 1949 , whose brick buildings he climbed frequently. Beckey wanted to be a cartographer, but then took a variety of odd jobs. He only worked continuously and with perseverance on his guides.

Book publications (selection)

  • Climber's Guide to the Cascade and Olympic Mountains of Washington , American Alpine Club, 1949
  • Climber's Guide to the Cascade and Olympic Mountains of Washington , revised 1953
  • Guide to Leavenworth Rock-Climbing Areas , 1965
  • A Climbers Guide to the Coastal Ranges of British Columbia , 1968
  • Challenge of the North Cascades , 1969
  • Cascade Alpine Guide: Columbia River to Stevens Pass , 1973
  • Cascade Alpine Guide: Stevens Pass to Rainy Pass , 1973
  • Darrington and Index Rock Climbing Guide , The Mountaineers, 1976
  • Cascade Alpine Guide: Rainy Pass to Fraser River , Mountaineers Books. ISBN 978-1-59485-136-0 .1981
  • Mountains of North America , 1982
  • The Bugaboos: An Alpine History , 1987
  • Mount McKinley: Icy Crown of North America , 1993
  • Challenge of the North Cascades (2nd edition) , 1996
  • Range of Glaciers - The Exploration and Survey of the Northern Cascade Range, Oregon Historical * Society Press, 2003

The "guru" of American alpinism

According to the unanimous opinion of American climbers, Beckey was the best expert on all mountain regions in America and also gave younger mountaineers tips on where first ascent or first ascent was possible. With his alpine achievements, he was transfigured into a legend in American climbing circles during his lifetime.

In contrast to Edmund Hillary , the first climber of Mount Everest , Beckey was shy of people and lived like a hermit, at times like a homeless person, was never married and had no children. His brother Helmut Beckey lives in Germany (2018). Fred had no permanent work and, according to his climbing partner, only had two passions: mountains and women.

The picture of Beckey on the side of the road with the sign “Will belay for food” is famous and has been reproduced many times.

Beckey was still on challenging climbing tours when he was ninety.

Movie

Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey, documentary, 1: 36h, 2017. Release date: March 7, 2018, Director: Dave O'Leske, Producers: Dave O'Leske, Jason Reid, Colin Harper Plank, Andy McDonough. Fred Beckey himself worked on the film, as did well-known mountaineers such as Yvon Chouinard and Timothy Egan .

Honors

The Beckey's Spire is named after him, a sandstone tower in Arizona , which he first climbed in 1970, and Mount Beckey in Denali National Park (Alaska), whose summit he was the first to reach in 1996.

Web links

Commons : Fred Beckey  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary: Robert D. McFadden: Fred Beckey, Conqueror of North American Peaks, Dies at 94 , New York Times of October 31, 2017 [1]
  2. Panorama - The Magazine of the German Alpine Club, Volume 70 1/2018, February 2018, p. 11
  3. Klaus Beckey was a cellist and taught at the American College of Music in Seattle, in 1926 he established himself as a doctor. Peter Blecha: Fred Beckey. The free online encyclopedia of Washington state history, March 26, 2010, accessed on March 2, 2018 (English, references to other sources).
  4. Seattle City Ordinance, Seattle Municipal Code 12A.54.010.
  5. Fred Beckey: West of the Stikine. American Alpine Journal, 1947, accessed April 6, 2018 .
  6. ^ Robert D. McFadden: Fred Beckey, Conqueror of North American Peaks, Dies at 94 , New York Times of October 31, 2017 [2]
  7. Michael Brick: For Climbing Legend at 85, More Peaks to Conquer and Adventures to Seek . ( nytimes.com [accessed July 9, 2018]).
  8. Fred Beckey's 100 Favorite North American Climbs . Patagonia, 2013, ISBN 978-1-938340-09-3 ( google.de [accessed July 9, 2018]).
  9. ^ Timothy Egan: The Good Rain - Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest. Vintage, New York 1990, pp. 70-86.
  10. Among other things, Corey Rich: The Creative Spontaneous Life of Fred Beckey. Corey Rich, January 15, 2014, accessed April 6, 2018 . , Michael J. Ybarra: The Old Man, His Mountains. Wall Street Journal, November 10, 2011, accessed April 6, 2018 .
  11. ^ Richard Shore, Crosby: Fred Beckey climbing at Nightmare Rock. 2013, accessed April 6, 2018 .
  12. Decimal coordinates: W 62.855687, −152.148509