Fred Beckey

Fred Beckey
Fred Beckey, circa 1990
Born	Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey (1923-01-14) 14 January 1923 (age 94) Düsseldorf, Germany
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Washington
Occupation	Rock climber, mountaineer, author

Friedrich Wolfgang Beckey, known as Fred Beckey, (born 14 January 1923) is an American rock climber, mountaineer and author, who has made hundreds of first ascents, more than any other North American climber.

Beckey was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, and his family emigrated to the United States in 1925, ending up in Seattle, Washington. He started climbing in the North Cascades as a teenager around age thirteen, learning the basic concepts from the Boy Scouts and later, The Mountaineers but quickly going on to harder climbs on his own. He managed to continue this focus on climbing for more than seventy years and has become an icon in North American mountaineering.

He attended the University of Washington and received a degree in business administration. He entered the printing industry and soon discovered that his work assignments encroached upon his climbing goals. He eschewed the printing industry to gain more climbing time. He worked as a delivery truck driver, which left him time for climbing. As time went on, he decided that climbing was his life's focus. He never married or had children, he never pursued a professional career, he never sought money or financial security as a goal—his goal was to climb mountains.

Unlike Jim Whittaker, a fellow Seattleite and the first American to reach the top of Mount Everest in 1963, Beckey shied away from the large team efforts, preferring smaller alpine-style undertakings. Beckey seemed a likely choice as a member for the large, 1963 American Everest Expedition, but he was not chosen, even though he had been to Lhotse in 1955 with the International Himalayan Expedition.

In the late 1940s, he asked The Mountaineers of Seattle to publish his first climbing guidebook for the local peaks. They turned him down, and the American Alpine Club agreed to print a few thousand copies for a flat fee. Between climbs, he has written several books, most notably the Cascade Alpine Guide, the definitive 3-volume description of the Cascades from the Columbia River to the Fraser River, now in its third edition, published by The Mountaineers.