Square Peg, Round Hole

Unlike many of his fellow climbers based in Seattle, Fred Beckey shied away from large-scale endeavors, preferring instead to pursue smaller trips, usually first ascents.

According to Helmut Vallindaklopf, who recently dined with the climbing icon, Beckey continues to do what he seemingly always has done: sleep on the couches of prospective climbing partners, eat their food, and climb -- every chance he gets.

Curmudgeon? Definitely. Cantankerous? You bet. But before that, he was a vagabond, somewhat reclusive, most assuredly a schemer. And brilliant, both in his ability to make more virgin ascents that any mountaineer alive and in his research and writing abilities, which I will reflect on later.

But first the man: Wolfgang Paul Heinrich Beckey, the name abbreviated when his family emigrated from pre-war Germany, was born in 1923. He went by Fred. Landing in Seattle, he started climbing as a teenager in the Boy Scouts and learned basic concepts from The Mountaineers, a climbing association based in the Emerald City.

Potentially one of the greatest climbers ever from Seattle, Fred was an outsider, a square peg who had no intention of attempting to fit into a round hole. Tip of the hat to the Whitaker brothers Jim and Lou, who both are legends in their own time, but frankly, they don't compare to Beckey, who has climbed perhaps 20 times as many peaks. He received a masters degree in business administration from the University of Washington, but worked in primarily menial jobs, which left him more time for the wilderness.

He says he liked to "escape from the artificial civilized order and its social and political controls." He was a man after my own heart.