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rick sumner
Trad climber
reno, nevada/ wasilla alaska
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Oct 30, 2017 - 05:46pm PT
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Not gone, just onto that mountain stretching endlessly into the sky.
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johntp
Trad climber
socal
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Oct 30, 2017 - 05:49pm PT
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Speachless other than to say I wish I had climbed with Fred.
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Scole
Trad climber
Zapopan
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Oct 30, 2017 - 05:56pm PT
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So sorry to hear about Fred; what an icon. Has anybody logged more climbing days in a lifetime that Fred Beckey? The guy had an amazing eye for a line, everywhere you look you will find a splitter line with Beckey's name on the FA. I'm glad to have known him
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:05pm PT
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A long life and immeasurable climbing legacy.
There are further route possibilities, some of which will take two or three days to complete.
Fred Beckey
From Everywhere Beckey
North America, Canada, British Columbia, Goose Rock, Squamish, B. C.
Climbs And Expeditions
AAJ 1960
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Levy
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:07pm PT
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"When Legends Die".
Fred was a remarkable individual, I had the pleasure to meet him once and found him to be a delight to talk with. The man had so many F.A.'s it's mind boggling!
R.I.P. Fred.
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:08pm PT
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There was a life. RIP Fred Beckey!!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:19pm PT
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Could people take a break from dying for christ's sake..?
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Mark Force
Trad climber
Ashland, Oregon
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:22pm PT
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:36pm PT
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Fred died the day after I mentioned him in the "Climb Forever" thread at http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/2925386/Climb-Forever. I added a footnote there that belongs here as well.
Fred died the day after my "Climb Forever" post, at the age of 94, with an 80 year climbing career behind him. For years, the United States portion of the Climbs and Expeditions section of the American Alpine Journal might just as well have been titled, "My excellent summer vacation by Fred Beckey." He was prolific, he was ubiquitous, and he spanned the generations. There will never be another like him, and in the context of this thread on aging, his eighty years of climbing will be a monumental threshold for a long time to come.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
RIP Fred
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:36pm PT
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he did reach for all the gusto, and got most of it...
we should declare 2018 "Fred Beckey year" and repeat as many of his climbs as possible... that would be an incredible climbing year!
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Chris Jones
Social climber
Glen Ellen, CA
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:41pm PT
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in 1942, aged 19, and with his 17-year old brother Helmy, Fred made the 2nd ascent of Canada's Mt. Waddington - a forbidding, remote peak that had turned back the best climbers of the day. How many of us were even born, let alone climbing then! And he was just warming up.
Never anyone like Fred before him, and never will be again. Thank you for the climbs you made and the life you led.
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kpinwalla2
Social climber
WA
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Oct 30, 2017 - 06:50pm PT
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I met Fred after one of his slide show lectures at Oregon State Univ. and I asked him which summit in the North Cascades was the most technically difficult to reach. He replied "Burgundy Spire", so I resolved to climb it, and did a few years later. I ran into him again after a lecture at Whitman College about 20 years ago when he stopped by my office for a chat. We hung out for a while talking about climbing and then he asked if I thought he should go back to school for a PhD in geology. He was in his early 70's at the time and was dead serious. He said he regretted not pursuing graduate studies in geology. He asked me my opinion of various programs. His guidebooks always had above average geology sections - maybe he could have pulled it off.
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HF
climber
I'm a Norwegian stuck in Joshua Tree
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Oct 30, 2017 - 07:17pm PT
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Another great man gone, and will be missed by many. Climb on,- wherever you are Mr. Beckey.
"I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!"
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
My sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Fred Beckey.
Hilde Fonda
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Oct 30, 2017 - 07:23pm PT
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Wow . . . What a life this man lived!
Fred you set the bar really f*#king high . . . best to you on your new journey.
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mike m
Trad climber
black hills
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Oct 30, 2017 - 07:27pm PT
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Rip to the man.
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Mazzystr
Gym climber
Homeless...
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Oct 30, 2017 - 07:31pm PT
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Posting from Raleigh NC. I had a great climbing night at the gym. Us easterners are blessed with a spectacular crag 15 min drive away. I felt energetic more so than usual for a Monday and surprisingly so having to step in for my wife and manage our kids.
I hit a stiff 5.11 for the gym as a warm up.
Decided today was the day. For four sessions I've been working on a 5.12 that went up an open book dihedral to a bulge then another dihedral. I floated up it and even had the gaul to take rests.
I got home and caught up on some Facebook and the news hit. I gasped so loud my wife heard me two rooms away. I can't say how many times I've said Are you doing the Beckey route? or We're doing the Beckey route. I don't talk about George Washington or Abraham Lincoln like that.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Oct 30, 2017 - 07:44pm PT
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RIP Fred
“What?”
R I P FRED!!!
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Conrad
climber
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Oct 30, 2017 - 07:57pm PT
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With respect.
Fred was always curious. He frequently asked where the next climb was or if conditions in some far off place were "in". Keeping his finger on the pulse of the scene, for which he was the grand mentor, kept him young for years.
No one will ever have a list of first ascents and new routes that spans the decades, ranges and types of rock as Fred. He certainly left this mark. May we celebrate the quintessential Fred rating of 5.9 A2. Hard enough to keep us on our toes, vague enough to pardon the sandbag and full of untold mystery.
"How did Fred climb this with six pitons and goldline?"
Thanks Fred for bearing the torch; the light from which we all benefited.
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