Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey (2017) - full transcript

[music playing]

-[beep]
-[Fred Beckey] Hey, this is
Beckey. This is Beckey.

Fred Beckey. This is Beckey.

Fred Beckey again.
Again, again.

Hey, I'm trying
to get ahold of you.

Hey, man, you're hard
to get ahold of.

I know, I left you
a message yesterday.

I've called about 35 people.

Hey, listen, I wanna talk to
you about a trip

that I have planned...

I'm leaving right now
for California



and then Arizona, then Utah.

I called you over and over.
Hey, where are you, man?

Are you off on the moon
somewhere? An Apollo mission?

Hey, listen,
I'm really pissed off.

P-I-S-S-E-D.

I got some free time now,
you know me.

I have more free time
than money.

Try to give me a call back
as soon as you can.

Call me back if you can.

So, give me
a call back anytime...

It's not gonna be that big
a chunk of time in your life.

[Alex Bertulis]
Fred Beckey is an enigma.

There'll be
Freudian psychologists

that will analyze him



long after he's gone
to the next world.

[Yvon Chouinard] He's totally
obsessive. That's who Fred is.

You know, obsessive behavior
can lead to absolute genius.

[Corey Rich] There is so many
urban myths and legends

that surround
who Fred Beckey really is.

[Steve Marts] He was driven
like no man I've ever met,

relentlessly.

[Eric Bjornstad] One track mind
most of the time.

If it wasn't on women,
it was on climbing. [chuckles]

[Conrad Anker] Fred chose
this other lifestyle.

[Barry Blanchard]
He created his own culture.

He became a culture of one.

[Allen Huxley] I suppose
you could say he's like

the Bob Dylan
of mountain climbing.

All these great achievements,

but completely inscrutable,

and no one's really sure
if they even like him or not.

[Yvon Chouinard]
He's a dirtbag,

and because of that,
I don't think he'll get

the recognition
that he really deserves.

[music playing]

[Fred] I don't even really
know what motivates
a person to climb.

To me, it's some kind of
a combination of adventure

that has a certain amount
of risk,

depending on other people.

Almost any climb
has some uncertainty.

You never know, there could be
a rock fall, an avalanche,

somebody could get hurt.

So there's certain amount
of adventure.

I mean, some people may think
it's an adventure

to go on a cruise ship
to the Mediterranean

and that's great
if they wanna do that.

To me, it's no adventure at all
unless somebody bombs the ship.

You know, good climbing today.
Good climbing.

Yeah, I enjoyed it. Pretty good.

Hope I didn't fuck
you guys' movies up.

[Todd Offenbacher] Is there
anything more important

to you than climbing?

It's hard to say.
It's hard to say.

I like to write
and accomplish something.

I should have brought
a pencil with an eraser.

That was a fuck-up.
I should know better.

[Todd Offenbacher]
How is it that you can climb

as well as you do still?

Really, what's the secret?

[Fred] I don't know,
I don't think I have any.
I don't know.

I don't take vitamins,

and I am not
a health food addict.

I just try to keep active.

I was drawn to Beckey
in my book The Good Rain

because he's a mythic figure.

There are very few mountains
left in the world

that nobody's ever climbed.

And in the climbing world
to be credited with
a first ascent,

being the first human being
to climb a mountain,

is considered quite a big deal.

[Barry Blanchard] It's hard to
imagine anyone in North America

starting to do
any form of climbing

and soon not hear
about Fred Beckey.

[Royal Robbins] His name
is everywhere.

This is the guy
from Pacific Northwest,

and he climbed
all over the United States,

in Europe, in Canada.

He was there
before the rest of us were.

[Yvon] Certainly no person
in the history of climbing

has ever amassed
so many first ascents.

[Conrad] What makes Fred
special in my book

is his unending quest

for new routes
to do something unexplored.

[Timothy] His contemporaries,
say in the 1950s or the 1960s,

those people ended up on
the cover of Life magazine.

That to me has been
one of the great mysteries:

Why did the best climber of all
never go on to the greatness

that they all did?

[birds chirping]

[music playing]

He is the ultimate dirtbag.

He was the first dirtbag
I ever knew,

and, you know, we all
became dirtbags eventually,

but he was the leader.

[Eric]
Because he climbed so much,

he didn't ever work at a job,

like nine-to-five, you know,

five days a week,
like most people.

[Alex] In the Alps, there was
a tradition of dressing up

formally for alpine climbing,

and Fred, he looked like
somebody that just came out of

a homeless shelter
or someplace.

He had his own style,

there's no doubt about that.
He was different.

[Ed Cooper] He had
a pink Thunderbird,

and we all wondered
what kind of vehicle is that

to load climbing gear into.
We couldn't understand it.

[Alex] That T-bird did not
give him good mileage,

but it got a lot of laughs.

And of course,
it was the ultimate
pick-up car for women.

[Fred] I just bought
the car on a whim
as of kind of a joke.

It was a good road car,
actually,

but a little bit
of a gas eater,

and I drove it
all over the country.

Must have put a hundred
thousand miles on it.

[Barry]
We have a whole culture

of dirtbagism and road tripping
in North America,

and Fred's the grandfather
of it.

He's the grandfather
of the road trip.

[Ed Cooper] The legends
about him driving

halfway across the Western
Continent, you know,

to do a pinnacle in Arizona

and then to do some climbing
in British Columbia,

and then go back to Montana
for another climb,

those were all true.

That's what he did.

You know, a lot of people,
a climbing trip is two weeks,

Fred would start off in spring,

climb through the summer
in the mountains

and the high peaks,

Wind Rivers and the places

and then, in the fall,
wind up in the desert.

[Steve Gunn]
* There's a constant motion

* Makes you feel
like the ocean *

* Moving through the seasons
and I'm hoping for the best *

[Eric] He's just so restless,

always living out of his car.

His second home, for a while,
was my basement.

[Barry] Climbing actually
doesn't cost that much money,

especially the way
Fred plays it,

it doesn't have
to be that expensive.

Food is really available
in North America

if you know
where to look for it. [laughs]

[Yvon] You know,
he'd go to restaurants,

and he'd pick up
10 packages of ketchup

and sugar and stuff 'em away.

Make up the eggs,
put a little
McDonald's sugar in here.

-Breakfast sandwich.
-Nice.

[Todd] All of us, kind of,
look at Fred going,

"God, how can we get
a piece of that.

How can we get
that Fountain of Youth

that lies within Fred Beckey."

I don't really know what it is
other than just his spirit

and his mindset

because if you watch him eat,

he eats like shit.

He eats tons of fast food.

He doesn't drink,
he doesn't smoke.

but he'll hang onto
a piece of food for weeks,

and pull it out of
his backpack and eat it.

I got some cream cheese
that I swiped somewhere

and still... it's edible.

I remember driving with him

in the car
on a road trip somewhere,

and I took that empty
McDonald's coffee cup

and threw it away,

and real quickly
Fred started questioning me,

you know, "Have you seen my cup?
I had a cup around here."

He proceeded for the next
five hours to look for the cup,

talk about the cup,
bitch about the cup,

"At McDonald's,
you get free refills
with an empty coffee cup.

he'd been hanging on to
the cup for, who knows,

probably most of the summer.

[Yvon] Fred had this sport coat
that he bought for 25 cents.

He stuffed pieces of this

Louis L'Amour novel
that he was reading,

stuffing it inside the liner--

made a down jacket
out of it, basically.

He bivouacked in that,
and then the next morning,

burned the thing to heat up
some tea. [laughs]

He is the ultimate,
the consummate dirtbag.

You know,
living as unobtrusively

on the edge of society,

as is possible for human to do.

And to still have
a focus on something.

He was not a druggie or drunk,
or anything like that.

He was an addict,
but his addiction was climbing.

[announcements on P.A.]

[Todd] Once again
Fred Beckey had a mountain

that was unclimbed,
scoped out.

Now a lot of people
said before the trip,

you know, is he
gonna be able to do it?

What happens
if Fred Beckey dies?

And I think we all
just kinda laughed and said,

[Todd Offenbacher]
"Fred's gonna do it
with or without us."

-[Fred] Where is this village?
-[man] From Kanding.

-It's around two hours...
-[Fred] Down here.

Of the unclimbed challenge,
I think...

you're looking at Pakistan,
China, Greenland.

China alone has just
got a wealth of beautiful,

unclimbed peaks
in the 5000-, 6000-meter range.

Hardly anybody
knows about 'em.

I think it's
a thirty years dream.

I cannot believe
that Fred would come back now.

He's eighty three years old.

[birds chirping]

-You recording all this?
-[Todd laughs]

Do you guys got
some first-aid stuff?

I do have a roll of duct tape.

I got lunch food. I got...

a lot of lemon powder.

[Todd laughs] Lemon?
All right...

Anyone that's ever taken

an international third world
trip into the mountains,

knows how brutal
the travel can be.

[horns honking]

Are you excited to get
into the mountains, Fred?

If you get too excited,
you wet your pants, you know?

[Todd laughs]

[David]
How's your head feeling?

It's OK.

My thinking is that,

we don't want
to hurry it too much

with the acclimatization.

I think we are in a pretty
comfortable spot at his point.

He seems to be doing OK.

And that's the goal, to get him
as rested as possible

because it's a big push.

[Reinhold] It's boring to go
to the mountains,

from the fifth year
of your life,

up to the ninetieth year
of your life.

This is boring.

I hope
you're filming all this.

[Timothy] Reinhold Messner
is largely recognized

as the best mountaineer ever,
the guy who climbed

every major peak
without oxygen.

And there's this climbing
called "Alpine style,"

which is climbing quickly
and without oxygen.

and for that matter,

without a supplemental
expedition at your base.

Beckey was doing that when he
was in his teens and twenties,

when everybody else
was saying you need a group.

His experiences
and his climbs,

I would say
his ocean of what he did

and what is in his soul
is so big,

that he could
give away forever.

Why he is going to China
to hike up a mountain?

It's not necessary anymore.

It's much more important,
and much more intelligent,

that he uses his last years
to do something creative.

[Todd] You think you can make
it to the summit, Fred?

On this trip?

[Fred] I don't know, I hope so.

[wind howling]

[Ralph] Get some good sleep
last night, Fred?

-No.
-[Ralph] No?

At least the weather
looks better.

Right now,
it stopped snowing.

You can see
the mountain, yeah.

We've got
a window of opportunity

with the weather,
it looks like.

Yeah.

Yeah, I hope it lasts.

You think you want
to go up tomorrow?

[sighs]

I haven't decided yet
when I want to go up.

I'm just not sure I'm really,

if I don't think
I can keep up,
I'm not gonna.

There's no point to it.

[Todd] Yeah, get some
sleep today, get some rest.

Seems like you're
feeling better.

-[Fred] Take your time up there.
-[Dave O'Leske] All right.

-OK.
-OK.

If we need an extra day,
take it.

[Todd] OK, Fred, we're gonna try
and go early for the Summit.

Just keep plugging away slow.

-It's a hell of a job.
-[beep]

[Todd] It was sad that Fred

couldn't get up there
and climb with us,

and do what he had done
so many times before

in the mountains.

[Helmy Beckey] Fred was born
in Germany, 1923.

Our parents came to the USA

with my brother in 1924,

a good 10 years before
Adolf Hitler got into power.

As kids, we were
together all the time.

That's my mother.

and that's me
in the middle, Helmy.

And there's Fred,

known at that time
as Wolfgang or Wolf.

The neighborhood kids
kidded him around.

they laughed at him
because of his name, Wolf.

And then he changed
his name to Fred,

because he didn't appreciate
being laughed at.

He went into the Boys Scouts,

and they went hiking
and climbing.

[Fred] We did some small peaks
in the Olympics.

I liked it, I had a good time,
I enjoyed it.

I felt it was a lot more fun
than doing any team sports

and I kind of appealed to me.

It was kind of fun.

And I think just one thing
led to another.

[Wolf] There's a glacial
boulder in Seattle,

it has about six
or seven climbing routes,

and I started a little climbing
class for the older boys.

[music playing]

It was there that Fred and I
struck up our friendship.

By 1938, we were beginning
to do climbs

in the Cascades.

[Fred] I met some people
my own age who were
taking the course,

and we went on trips
of our own.

[Lowell Skoog] You started to
see a new kind of
mountaineering

in the Northwest.

Maybe three or four climbers
going out on

much more adventurous,
remote trips

than their predecessors
had done,

and really starting to explore

all throughout the Northwest
and in the Cascades,

where Fred really devoted
lot of his energy.

[Jim Donini] The only real
Alpine mountains, lower 48,

are in the Pacific Northwest.

So they had this playground,
like a mini Himalaya,

right in their backyard.

When Fred started
way back when,

a lot of those
beautiful peaks

never had anybody
on their summits.

[Fred] The first...
first ascent,

we went to Mt. Despair.

Probably, today's climbers

or even the most skilled ones
don't have a real deep feeling

of what it's like to try a route
that nobody's ever been on.

Fred was talking
about his climbing

and talking,
talking, talking...

and he dragged me along,
you know. [laughs]

1940, here's some pictures
of the first ascent

we made of Forbidden Peak.

That was my first-first ascent.

Scary... [laughs]

Frightening.

[Dave] What did
your parents think

about you
and Fred climbing?

[Helmy] I don't think
they knew how...

dangerous things got sometimes,

or how scary it was.

I think they understood
that there was some danger
out there,

but there wasn't much
that they could do about it,

except forbid us to go,

and that wouldn't
have worked either.

[Fred] Yeah, I probably am
pretty independent, yeah.

I don't think many kids

17 and 19 would take off
for Mount Waddington

when they're still
in high school.

Uh-uh. Uh-uh

[Colin] That second ascent
of Mt. Waddington

which Fred and Helmy did

when they were
19 and 17 years old,

that's a hard route today.
It's probably been climbed

less than 10 times total.

[Nick Clinch]
Waddington was a huge challenge
for North American mountaineers.

The best Sierra Club climbers
went up there and tried it,

and then it was
finally done by Fritz Wiessner

who was considered
the leading climber

in the United States.

[Barry] It's
mind-blowing to think

that these two
teenage boys from Seattle

spent a month and a half

in the absolute wilderness
of British Columbia.

[Fred] I still
can't even remember

how we put that together.

We must have somewhere
taken a bus

out to a big grocery store,

and bought all
our groceries for six weeks.

That's a lot of groceries.

[music playing]

[Fred] We made a menu up,
and then we repeated it.

I had it all figured
out, little squares.

packed it up in cloth bags.

So I got a cloth bag,

you know there's everything
you need for three days.

We would never have gotten
that trip off the ground

if it hadn't been
for Don Mundy and his wife.

They set us up with a guy
who had a fishing boat

and he took us
to the head of Knight Inlet,

dropped us off. Adios.

We spent, maybe, two weeks
relaying back and forth loads.

[Conrad] This is
ferocious bushwhacking

through coastal
temperate forest

with downfall the size
of telephone poles.

[Peter Croft] They've actually
called Waddington

the mystery mountain

because for a long time
it was a blank spot on the map.

If it had gone horribly wrong,

it's hard to say if
they'd even ever be found.

[Fred] I once fell
into a crevasse.

My brother essentially
grabbed me by the collar

and pulled me out.

And that could have been
the end of the trip,

the end of more than the trip.

[Helmy] At the very, very top
Fred did the leading, you know.

Right in where
it's really hairy.

Scared, frightened.

I don't know about Fred.
He never mentioned it to me.

I was, "You just look down,"
you know.

You just don't.

[Fred] Spent the night
essentially on the summit,
a few feet below.

Must have been shivering,
all we had were sweaters.

[Helmy] I had my 17th birthday
on top of Waddington.

"Hope we live
through the night."

We didn't sleep, we just...

sweated it out, you know?

Coming down was more dangerous
than going up

because we were coming
down in the late afternoon,

and by then, snow and ice
on the ledges had loosened up,

rocks were coming down.

My brother
got hit on the knee.

[Helmy] God, that hurt like
holy hell, I'll tell you.

Thank God I didn't get hit
on the head.

[Barry] This is the second
ascent of what was

at that time the hardest
Alpine climb in North America,

and two teenage boys
walk up, do that,

and the whole world shifts.

It sucks the feet out
from under all the men

because men are
trying to do this thing.

[Fred] We were a little bit
surprised ourselves

that we managed to pull it off.

We got our pictures in
the Seattle newspaper, that big.

Unless you rob a bank,

it's kinda hard to get
your picture in the paper.

[Alex] During the early years,
they were inseparable.

It was during the epic
Waddington expedition

that Helmy sustained
a rock fall on his knee.

and injured it badly.

Ever since then,
Fred and Helmy drifted apart.

Helmy ended up going to Europe

and he became
a successful opera singer.

But once Helmy
stopped climbing with Fred,

Fred no longer took any
interest in Helmy's life.

They rarely saw each other.

[Helmy] Our relationship
deteriorated

because he continued to climb,

and I did not climb anymore.

Forty-two,
the war was on then.

Fred had to go in the army.

He was in
the mountain troops.

He was instructing climbers
and skiers.

He didn't have
to go to Europe and fight.

[Todd] What did you do
in the army?

-[Fred] Very little.
-[Todd laughs]

I was in
the mountain training corps,

taught snowshoeing.

I don't know
what there is to teach but...

you know, you spend half the
time freezing your butt off.

I spent more time
on the railroad than
I did anywhere else,

just going from place to place.

[Bob] He was discharged before
the division went overseas.

I don't know whether
it was a medical or what...

[Dave] He never talked to you
about that?

Never talked about it.

[Steve Gunn]
* Night climb. Window

* Down the water,
ground below *

* Whatchya doing,
where you going *

* Where you end up
when the morning comes? *

[Fred] I think the next,
I'll have to go through
my cobwebs in my

little peanut sized brain,

the next biggest thing I did
was to get together

with Cliff Schmidtke
and Bob Craig,

and went to Kate's Needle
and Devil's Thumb.

[Bob] I think Fred
had read somewhere
in the Sierra Club Journal

about this great mountain.

I certainly didn't know
about Devil's Thumb.

But Fred was an encyclopedia
of available mountains

that hadn't been climbed.

I was just out of the navy.

And Fred called me,
"Everything is all set.

we got lots of food
up on the glacier.

Come up to Wrangell,
Alaska.

And I'll meet you
and we'll go up to
Stikine River,

and make this climb."

Typical Fred enthusiasm
and not very much more
detail than that.

[Fred] He and Schmidtke said

they had agreed to come up
in about a week the next boat.

Several parties had
tried Kate's Needle,

But nobody has tried
Devil's Thumb.

Waiting out the weather,
we eventually climbed
Kate's Needle.

[Bob] We made three attempts

on Devil's Thumb,
and had to retreat twice,

and on the third attempt,
we got to the summit.

And we were running out of food
down at our camp.

We're cooking some of the last
remaining food we had,

and Fred handed me this bag,
which I thought were beans.

I poured it into the pan,
and we melted some snow and

I suddenly looked at him,

I said,
"Fred these beans

don't have anything
in them except maggots.

Where did this come from?"

He said, "Well, Helmy and I
had it on Waddington." [laughs]

So, we ate this stew
of beans and maggots.

We were pretty hungry
at that point.

[music playing]

[Sybil Goman]
Fred was lively and addictive,
and very outgoing.

There's some sort
of magnetism there.

[Alex] He burned through women

like a gypsy
went through horses.

[Yvon] He has a real soft place

in his heart for tall,
dirty blondes.

[Bob] There's
a certain kind of girl

that frequented
roller skating rinks,

Roller Dames,

Rink Rats.

[Jim] I know guys
that wouldn't introduce
him to their women

or let him
stay in their homes.

[Don] Beware of Beckey:

he'll steal your women,
he'll steal your climbs.

-[Dave] Is that true, you think?
-[Alice Liska] Oh, yeah.

[Jim] He's had
a lot of girlfriends.

And he does it with
the same tenacious quality

that he does his climbing.

[Alex] He met this very
attractive woman

by the name of Vasiliki,

skiing at Stevens Pass.

And they hit it off.

[Fred] Vasiliki was her name.

She actually
called herself Betty.

She came from
a Greek background.

[Alex] Fred named
a series of rock spires,

not only after her, but also
after her favorite drinks.

[Vasiliki]
It's an honor, I guess.

He put me on the map.
What can I say?

That's wonderful.

This has been over 50 years now
that people have said,

"Are you the Vasiliki?" "Yes."

"Well, I've climbed you."

And I say, "Oh, OK."

[Timothy] When I asked him
about that, his face
was startled.

and it was like
I caught him in something.

He goes,
"How do you know about her?"

She was the one,
the one great love of his life.

It turns out she marries

one of the most famous people
in the Northwest,

Bill Dwyer,
a federal judge.

Vasiliki chose the judge
instead of the dirtbag climber.

But, I guess
you can't blame her.

Maybe it's a good thing
that she turned him down

because Fred would have
actually gone for it

and not kept climbing
cutting-edge routes

for another 50 years.

[Vasiliki] He was a very
interesting man to me

not because he was
a mountain man,

but because he was so well read

and he used to give me
old books of poetry,

he was a different
sort of creature.

He moved more than a gypsy,
I think.

He was just gone,
but he's come back to write.

I liked that sense of freedom
to go.

He was not free
from his passion,

but he was free
from everyday things

that the rest of the people
are involved in.

And he just was driven
to this way of life.

[Todd] Do you think
you'll ever get married?

[Fred] I think I...
yeah, sometime I should.

I should try it out. Yeah.

-[Todd] What would be
the perfect--
-[Fred] I don't know.

[music playing]

I am the daughter of Scottie,

who was a girlfriend of Fred's
for several years.

Probably around '49 to '52.

In 1950, they went
on a trip to Europe together.

My mother said
she was gonna go skiing
and ran off to France.

And then at some point,

Fred came back
and my mom stayed on.

When they broke up,
my mom and Fred went
to the court

to separate
their personal items,

So who knows, you know,
did they elope?

This is probably
the most significant
relationship in her life

before she met my dad.

Even years later after
my mom was married to my dad,

Fred would call sometimes

and try to get her
to run off with him.

[Eric] Yeah, he always had
women in his life.

Rarely had the same one
for a very long time.

Sybil was one of
the exceptions.

[Sybil] He invited me to go on
lots of climbs and just hang
around basecamp,

which, with Fred,
a weeklong trip

would usually morph
into three months.

Now some things that people
don't know about Fred

is he likes opera,
he likes libraries.

Fred did have some tenderness
and romanticness in him.

Everybody knows
Fred has a strong personality

and consequently we had
a lot of fireworks
and a lot of sparks.

We just, kind of, drifted apart
and back together, and apart.

I think what he wanted
was a satisfying playmate.

[Alex] A good number of years,

he was living in my townhouse.

Quite often he would bring
lady friends over,

and I could hear Fred talking

about the most personal issues
in his life,

which he would never

think of doing
with his best friends.

Here was this very secretive
and reclusive legend

who was opening
up his innermost feelings

to these women

that he's only gonna see
for a few days,

I wish some of those women
would have had tape recorder

and just recorded it

because it would have made
interesting reading.

[beep]

You guys go ahead,
if you want to.

I gotta get some water.

I don't why
you're taking movies,
I'm just climbing like shit.

[Ed Cooper] All
climbers know about his
climbing accomplishments,

and he's probably made
more first ascents
in North America

than any other
climber ever will.

But there's another
side to Fred

that I think
is very interesting,

and that is
that he is a scholar.

He must have spent
thousands of hours

in libraries researching,

even a college professor

could hardly get out
that amount of work
in a lifetime.

[Layton] Well, every time
somebody opens up a guidebook

in an area
where Beckey's climbed,

they're gonna be following
his footsteps, whether they like
it or not.

[Ed Viesturs] Beckey's
Cascade Alpine Guides,

that was like our Bible.

Every week we'd
pick out something,

where we wanted to go,
what we wanted to climb,

and we'd have
Beckey's book with us

and we'd memorize
what he said,

you know,
very detailed information

about not only
how to get there,

what moves to make,
what equipment to bring,

how long it would take,
the attention to detail
was amazing,

and the fact that he did
most of the climbs

that he wrote about
is even more amazing.

[Jim] The guy knows more
about the mountains
of North America

than anyone that's ever lived.

You can't go climbing
with Fred Beckey

without Fred having
a piece of paper

shoved into his pocket

and some pens taped
around his neck

on, like,
a piece of string.

Sometimes, the most
inopportune times,

you hear him shout,
"Hold on a second!"

And you look down and he's in
the middle of a pitch,

like, scribbling notes
about some obscure section

of, like, an obscure pitch.

[Fred] Kind of a big ledge.

Trees going right.
What are these? Mahoganies?

-We got three bolts up there?
-[Todd] Yep, three bolts.

[Corey] He's like
a mad scientist.

He doesn't know
what he's wearing.

He doesn't care if there's
stains on his clothes.

Fred has one focus, which is
climbing and documenting

climbing through his topos.

[Fred]
Went out here, to kind of,
like a little ramp.

-Yep.
-There's a block and you step.

-Yup.
-I still remember that.

-I stuck here
and you went up there.
-[Todd] Yep.

-OK.
-[Todd] Either one is, bomber.

OK. Either one
and 155-foot pitch.

[Corey] And he has all of
those notes cataloged

in the Fred Beckey way,

shoved into closets
and shoe-boxes

and FedEx envelopes
in his house.

[Fred] I got about 90 topos
at home of different routes.

And I got 'em all
glued together

so I can carry 'em around
and show 'em to people.

And I got it 'em all organized
by state, or area, you know.

Whatever.

[Corey] The amount
of data that, you know,

it's almost like Fred Beckey,
the super computer.

If there was an encyclopedia
of climbing,

it's, really,
it's inside of his head.

OK, go up this crack,

about 20 feet, you'll see it.

And cut out to the right.
It's very obvious.

You look up there,
you'll see a giant horn,

looks like a dog head.
You know.

Cut the right,
you'll see the gully,
you can't miss it.

You'll have fun.

[Dave] So did you ever study
writing techniques?
Or did you--

[Fred] No, believe it or not,
I never did.

-[Dave] Really?
-[Fred] Never took
a fucking course.

I think taking a writing
course would have just
fucked me up totally.

[Timothy]
He chained himself to a desk
at the Oregon Historical Society

trying to produce
this greater book

about the history
of the Cascades.

[Fred] I was all over--

National Archives,
you name it.

Practically every research
library on the East Coast.

I should've had a girlfriend,
hanging around with me

to keep me company
doing all of this stuff.

[Fred] Did Range of Glaciers
do okay?

[Fred] Not money-wise,
not for me.

The money has never been
very good.

It should've been.

I blame... I don't know
who to blame.

The public,

the Internet

The books that are
really selling

are these self-help books.

Dr. Phil...

I am OK, you're OK,

you're not OK, I am OK,
you're an idiot.

You know,
how to improve yourself.

How to increase
your sensibilities,

how to make love,
how to make this,

how to do that.

There's whole shelves of 'em
in Seattle, I looked at,

a whole eight feet high,
that wide.

Self-help psychology...

How to improve this...
how to improve...

Jesus Christ!

There must be a lot of people
that are insecure.

There must be.
It's not my kinda thing.

You know, not at all.

But, I mean, I'm not
knocking it, great.

Good for Dr. Phil.

He's probably making $10 million
a year on that stuff, but...

[Fred] I'm trying to
put together a bit of a hybrid,

to kinda, portray the mountain
or the route, access,

route description, summary,

picture, map, topo.

All my friends say
it will go over.

But they're my friends, so I'm
not sure I trust them, you know?

Originally, I had
in mind, the name

100 Classic Climbs,

That was the first idea
and somewhere

the last couple of years,
I went bonkers

and forgot
all about the numbers

and just kept writing
and writing,

and the last time,
I have a list of the climbs,

I counted 137.

Can you believe it?

There was four climbs
when we started with him

that he still hadn't been
able to do,

but he wanted to put in anyway,
'cause they're such classics.

[Fred] I feel very strongly
that I want to have done
each of these climbs

or made a good
solid attempt on it.

Tentatively,
I've included them.

In fact, that's one reason
I can't really finish this thing

until the fall, as far as
totally finishing it.

Just as an explanation,

and part of this
is my idiosyncrasies

involved in it too,
I admit that.

[Fred] I'd like to do
Assiniboine

It's not a hard climb,
but it's interesting,

and kind of a big,
high mountain.

[Don] With a character
like Beckey,

going back
becomes almost a routine,

it almost becomes expected.

Well, if I miss it today,

I'll go back tomorrow,
or next year,

[beep]

[Fred] I wanted to jump you
into going to Assiniboine.

Its dry now.
Excellent conditions.

The weather is good.

This is the optimum time
to do it.

Let's get going on this.

[Jim] He'd go back,
and he'd go back,
and he'd go back,

and damn it,
eventually he'd get it done.

[beep]

[Fred] We're going up to
Mt. Monarch, near Waddington.

Hell of a mountain. Be a great
place to do some filming.

[beep]

It's the most important trip
of the summer for me.

-I want to be sure
it does not fail.
-[beep]

I realize this is almost
impossible short notice,

but I've done stuff
like that before,

Just jump on an airplane,
"To hell with it all,"
and just get out.

[Barry] A lot of
mountain climbing and alpinism

is mastering
the art of suffering,

and a lot of it is,

torturous, laborious,
physical work.

I mean, it's hard
and it's uncomfortable,
and you're cold,

and you're hungry
and you're wet.

For a guy like Fred,

I am sure
within his first decade,

realized that he was in love
with the process.

[Ed Cooper] Fred really enjoyed
the mountains,

more than just, let's say,
making a first ascent
or something.

He truly loved being out there.

[Don] Fred Beckey is,
in my opinion, a poetic genius.

Where the poetry
is the beauty and wildness

of unchanging nature
and the challenge
of the heights.

[Fred] It's hard to describe,
for me anyway...

You might call it
a sense of awe,
a sense of amazement,

a sense of just
a different view
than you get from the valley.

And it's a very temporal one,
obviously

because you're not gonna
be there very long.

You know, most city sports,
like take football,

you can quit,
and if you're pooped out,
off you go.

But in climbing, you're in
the middle of a wall somewhere,

and the weather's coming in,
you got a lot of commitment.

To me,
there is endless beauty
involved in these things

and depending on the conditions
and the weather and times

it's changeable all the time.

I think there is
a certain satisfaction
that builds up naturally,

it may even compare
to winning a ball game.

There's a good feeling
about it.

Different than going
to work everyday,
you don't feel any better

after the end of the day.
At least I don't.

[Timothy] One of the things
that Beckey is really bad at

and this is to me, a virtue.

He lacks self-promotion.

Other people would have,
not only entire lines of gear

with their name on it,
he would be a household name.

[Alex] He had opportunities
to endorse products

and be on the back page
of every climbing magazine,

he never followed
that opportunity.

Because that would
compromise his real ambition,
and that was climbing.

In other words,
he was not for sale.

[music playing]

In his prime he was the
consummate all-around climber.

He could climb rock
as good as anybody,
if not, better.

[Steve] I've known a lot of
climbers but he was singular

and he had this drive
that was like

the whole universe is coming
down in a spiral at that point.

And that's Fred.

[vintage narrator]
Fred Beckey, climbing
leader of the party. At 30,

one of America's
foremost mountaineers.

[Conrad] A year after the first
ascent of Everest in 1954,

Fred Beckey did the All-Star,

Grand Slam, Super Bowl,
World Series, Stanley Cup,

all wrapped into one season
in the Alaska Range.

First ascent of Mt. Deborah,

first ascent of northwest
buttress of Denali,

pretty challenging routes,
seldomly climbed now

and then the first ascent
of Mt. Hunter.

[vintage narrator]
Seventy miles of pack out

after climbing a mountain,
but they're all smiling.

They've nearly won.

Behind them is the summit of
the north face of Mt. McKinley.

Twenty thousand feet
of Arctic mountain climbed,

a mountain beaten.

[Conrad]
Whenever I think about, "Oh,
how badass am I right now?"

It's like, "I'm soft, I'm
light compared to Fred in '54""

[Interviewer] If you were to be
remembered by a single climb

the most important
or most significant climb

that you've done,
what would it be?

[Fred]
Probably Mount Deborah.

it's the one
that scared us the most.

[Henry Meybohm] I had heard
about Fred Beckey before

and then I had the chance
to climb with Fred Beckey.

Really?

Yeah!

[Henry] When you are in Europe
and you climb in the Alps,

whatever you do has been done
a few hundred times before.

And when I was in Alaska
I heard about

unclimbed mountains.

Huh? Okay, let's try!

[Fred] Heinrich Harrer
had heard that we were up there

climbing on McKinley,
and we just sort of

met up near Fairbanks,
and we just joined forces.

[Layton] First ascents,
you never know.

There are
all these mysteries and,

you know, what's
gonna happen up there?

How difficult is it gonna be?

You know, a lot of unknowns.

[Colin] You don't know exactly
what equipment you'll need

you don't know
where the difficulties will be,

how hard it will be,

what the descent will be like,

and first ascents
are coveted because of that.

[music playing]

[Jim] To do that in 1954
given the state

of the equipment
that people had then,

given the methods
that you would use to get there

because this is, you know,
remote wilderness,

And the body of knowledge then,
I mean, that's phenomenal.

[Steve Gunn]
* You were lost

* On the road
from a different way *

* Pushed too far

* Miles away

[Alex] In 1963, when
the American Everest expedition

went to the Himalayas,
Fred Beckey

was undoubtedly the foremost
climber in America.

[Jim] And Norman,

when he was choosing
the Everest group,

deliberately passed over Fred

on the theory that Fred
didn't play well with others.

[Norman Dyhrenfurth]
In '63 he applied.
I said, "Fred...

no."

[Tom Hornbein]
It was felt that Fred

was not as much
of a team player,

and I sensed
that some of that came

from what happened
on that Lhotse expedition.

[Norman] In 1955, I finally got
the permission for Lhotse,
the fourth highest mountain

right next to Everest.

I had...

two Swiss, one doctor,

and I had three Americans

and Fred Beckey
was one of them.

I knew his reputation,
and I'd read in
the American Alpine Journal

and I knew that he was
a good climber, yes.

But I also knew that...

he had never been invited
on an expedition.

[Ed Viesturs]
There's some compromises
that you have to accept

when you go on a Himalayan
expedition with a big team.

You gotta accept
that I might not get
a chance to go to the top

I've got to be a team player,
I've got to contribute.

He didn't...

hit it off too well
with the others,

there were Austrians and Swiss.

The Europeans called him
the "prolete,"

which means proletarian.
[chuckles]

He was a likable guy,
he was a good climber.

He meant well...

but he didn't always
do the right thing.

And he left our doctor
at our high camp.

[Fred] I was in a tent with
Bruno Spirig, he was a doctor,

he was a Swiss climber.

We were camped at
roughly 23,000 feet.

Wind picked up,
it was really a bad storm,

the wind just tore
that tent apart.

And Spirig started feeling bad.

Some of the party were camped

I'd say about
1,500 vertical feet below us,

and...

there was a choice,
what was I gonna do?

[Norman]
He left him alone
and came down to Advance Base

and everybody was aghast
and said, "Why did you
leave him alone?"

He says, "Well" He didn't even
have a sleeping bag.

Sure, I could have stayed there,
but what could I do for him?

We had no radio communication,

I felt the best thing to do
was to go down to get help.

Help might've
come up that day

or the next day,
but who knows?

I felt it was more urgent,

and the best policy
was to go down to get help

and then come back,
and I came back up with them.

[Norman]
The next morning, I went up
with my friend Angobar

and Fred Beckey,
and the three of us went up

and we got him down,
the doctor.

But ever since
they couldn't figure out

why he didn't stay with him
or bring him down?

After this thing,
things changed.

[Nick Clinch]
It's a huge difference
between second guessing somebody

and being there

when you have got
to make that decision.

You have got to do this,
and these are the factors.

[Jim] The first time
I heard about Fred was,

I was just a young kid.

He was a little
different but, you know,

nature is diverse
and so is humanity.

My life was more, I guess
you would say, structured.

And I would definitely say

that Fred's life
was unstructured.

[Timothy] His contemporaries,
they founded companies,

they were like movie stars
for a while,

they were glamorous.

They were like the astronauts
of mountaineering,

and Beckey was left out.

[Tom] To imagine Fred being
the first American
to climb Everest

and substituting
him for Whittaker

I can't imagine Fred

to be the... the sort of
the public persona

of the expedition.

It's a hell of a responsibility
and I'm glad it was Jim

who I think could manage it
and thrived on it.

[Helmy] Who was Whittaker
other than he climbed Everest?

But these are guys
that get to talk to
the President of the USA,

and are big heroes,
you know,

because they're the first
Americans to climb Mt. Everest.

[Jim] I was never attracted
to any dirtbag style

I wasn't that far
out of the box.

My whole life
wasn't climbing.

It was Fred's
whole life, actually.

I would have liked
to have gone...

I'm sure.
But, since I wasn't invited,

all right, so you weren't.
You know, sorry.

Sorry.

[Timothy] There's these
pivot points in life

where you could go one way
or the other.

Beckey had about 10 of them,

and at every turn, he stayed
in the climber bum,

dirtbag lane,
he never turned off.

He never took
the exit to respectability,

he never took
the exit to an easy life

he never took the exit
to branding Fred Beckey.

Would he have liked to?

I mean, the proof is
in the life.

[Fred] Can't say I've had
any regrets,

at least I haven't
thought about it.

I really don't like to dwell
back on the background.

You did what you did,
forget it. You know,
look forward

to something new.

[Conrad] So, he missed out
on these big expeditions

and these trips at the time
were what professional climbers
were doing.

You were either part
of one of these big trips

or you were out there
forging your own path.

And Fred was
forging his own path.

[Alex] While the Everest
expedition spent a whole
season climbing one peak

and only a handful
made it to the top,

Fred spent the same amount
of time

doing dozens of first ascents
all over North America.

[Timothy] You could take,
in isolation,

probably a dozen Beckey peaks.

Any of those dozen
would make a career.

But then, expand that
by a factor of ten,

and Beckey was just
knocking them off
one after the other.

It was like,
tell me a place
that's unclimbable,

and I'll be there on Saturday.

He was astonishing people.

[Ed Cooper] In those
early days,

Fred seemed to be climbing
almost all the time.

In fact, many of us wondered
where he got all the money

because he never seemed
to have a job or work.

[Don] No one really knew
much about how he made
his living

or what he did.

[Yvon] He had no money,
I mean, he was working,

I think as a paper salesman
in those days...

[Eric]
When I first met him,
he sold insurance

and he usually had
a company car...

[Steve] He didn't work at all.

I don't know quite
how he did it.

Then the big rumor...

came along, there was this
plane crash on Slesse,

and the rumor was that there
was all this gold aboard.

Fred was trying to get people
to go into Slesse with him.

Some of us began to think,
well, you know,

maybe he actually got in there
and got hold of that money.

And that's why he was able to,
you know,

spend all his time climbing.

[Alex] He put away money,
and we never will find out

how much, but he put it
away in stocks...

[Fred] How much do I have
on the market?

That's all?

Well, I can't buy
anything with that.

OK, great, Thanks.

How about this
macaroni and cheese?

[Dave] What do you say
when someone asks you
what do you do for a living?

[Fred] It depends who it is.

If I don't want to
talk to that person,
I just tell 'em, "Adios."

None of their fucking business!

[Timothy] When I got to know
him, he was sort of twitchy

whenever he was at sea level.
He doesn't do well

when he's not in thin air.

Yeah, I wish
they'd make the law,

"Car first. Pedestrians,
fuck 'em."

Like China,
Bangkok or Europe.

Here, the fuckin' people
walk out across street

and don't even look!

[Timothy] It's like he was
in prison or something

when he was in the city.

The mountains
are the only thing

that made him comfortable.

-[beep]
-[Fred] Hey, this is Beckey.
Can you rent a car?

But we've got to
get out of here.

The weather might
come in on Sunday,

and it'll fuck
the whole damn trip up.

-[beep]
-Beckey again!

I called you
over and over.

The whole trip is not going
to work unless we get going.

[beep]

Hey, this is a crisis.
This is Fred.

You have got to be here
on the 12th, on Saturday!

That was our agreement!

You cannot be here
as late as Monday!

We are losing
the whole weekend.

[Rick Ridgeway] He called me
up couple weeks ago

to check in on how the book
was coming along,

and I said, "Well,
how are you coming
along on the climbs?"

He said, "Oh, I got
weathered off last year,
but I'm getting all geared up,

we'll get it done.
We'll get it done
before press time."

[Fred]
Don't take movies of me, I look
kind of ugly this morning.

[Jeff Wenger]
Ah, you look great.

-[Jeff] Hey!
-[Fred] Anybody want agua?

-[Jeff] Sure,
I'll have a little.
-[Fred] Yeah, it's free.

-[Jeff] How many times
have you been up here?
-[Fred] Too many.

Just, things just haven't
clicked.

Sometimes my fault,

sometimes the weather.

OK.

[breathing heavily]

Good lead.

I'm not doing very well.

Shitty.

[Todd] I do see Fred
get really defeated

by not physically
being able to do it,
because mentally he still

thinks of being able
to climb this stuff.

He still wants
to climb Lucky Streaks,
and believes he can.

Hope I climb
better than this tomorrow.

Fuck.

I didn't set any
speed records on that, man.

Kind of fun, though.

Hope I didn't embarrass
you guys too much.

[Jeff] You did great, man.

I don't know,
I feel a little clumsy.

[Todd] Very quickly
after the defeat
and the self doubt

he's real quick
to just turn right back around

and somehow just erase
all that from his brain
and start fresh

that he wants to climb
Lucky Streaks again.

Ah, maybe I'll go back
next year, we'll see.

If I do, I think I'm just
gonna go up and climb

three pitches
and just bail out.
Fuck it.

[Jim] One thing
about alpine climbing--

if you can't handle
rejection or failure,

don't even go there.

[music playing]

[Jim] We were in Bishop,
California.

It was a Saturday night,

and we all went to
a country western bar,

and there were lot of women.

Fred's there,
and there's this table

with about nine attractive
women in their, maybe thirties.

He'd go over, and he'd
tap one on the shoulder,

and she'd look up at him,

you know, he's
35 years older and...

"Hey, uh, hey, would you like
to dance?"

And, "No."

And then, "Ok." You know,
he'd go to the next one,

"Hey, how about you,
would you like to dance?"

"I don't think so."

But he went right
around the table to,

about the fifth or sixth one,

and the most attractive even.

And she said, "Sure,
I'll dance."

And they went up,
and they disappeared,

and we never saw him again
for three days. [chuckles]

Persistence pays off.

[Fred] Something like that?

-Yeah. It's good.
-[Annie Musselman] Yeah.

[camera shutter clicks]

You want me to smile
or grouch or...

[woman laughing]

[laughing] You're great.

-[Fred] You're tall,
what are you, 5'8"? 5'9"? 5'8".
-[Annie] 5'8", yeah, and a half.

[Fred] You haven't done
any rock climbing at all?

-[Fred] It's all right.
-[Annie] Kinda scary.

-[Fred] Yeah, sorta.
-[Annie] You don't think?

-[Fred] It is scary.
-[Annie] Yeah.

[Fred] But lots of of other
things are scary.

[Annie] Yeah, that's true.

[Corey] Fred Beckey
in his late 80s

is more motivated
for expeditions

and has more ideas
for what he would like to climb

than any other climber,

and it's because
he's thinking about this stuff

24/7 for 80-plus years.

[Yvon] Still now,
he's not staying in motels,

he's sleeping
on the side of the road

and hasn't changed at all.

[Fred] OK.

I guess we're out of here.

I probably won't get back
till July 12, 14th, maybe.

-[Dave] Mm-hmm.
-I'm not sure, you know.

[Barry] One way you knew
you made

the North American
climbing landscape

was you'd get your first
Fred Beckey phone calls...

[beep]

[Fred] Fred Beckey,
let's get together on a climb.

Actually I'm taking off,
I hope today.

I'm trying to get something
together to go to Canada...

Yeah, I'm hot to
go on this thing

as soon as
we can get mobilized.

[Don] In a way,
you look forward

to communications with Fred,

and in a way you looked
a little bit with dread

at the next time
he's going to give you a call.

Right now, I don't know
what I'm doing except tomorrow.

I have no idea.

Are you in Alaska?

OK, you just got back?

I've been trying to get hold
of you, as you probably know.

[Steve] He was persuasive,
yeah. He'd get you the phone.

He'd analyze the weather--
the "weddah," as he called it.

[Fred] Called the weather
man, it's supposed to be good.

What do you think
of this awful summer weather?

I was trying
to call Canada today

and I may call some ranger
up there like the ice fields

and get an idea
what is really happening.

[Jack Tackle] How many
thousands of people
have gotten a call

in the middle of the night,
you know, "What's the weather
doing there?"

"Well, Fred, it's fucking dark
out, I don't know.

[Fred] I think conditions here
are pretty darn good right now.

The weather's excellent.

Actually got room
for another guy.

Three would be perfect.

[Alex] He would do his best

to convince a guy
to go climbing.

[Fred] You're pushing
your luck sometimes,

like you might
get high blood pressure
by just working too hard.

[Alex] He'd hound you
until you caved in.

[Erik Harz] He will not
rest until you call him back.

There's no blowing off Fred.

[Fred] Shit!

[Erik] Especially if
he knows where you live,

like, you don't know,
he could just,

-like, show up at your house.
-[Fred] I'm Fred Beckey,
remember me.

Hey, we're right
in front of your house!

Fucking system, I got
to do something about this.

I'm on your street,

but I don't know
where your place is.
Gonna stop by.

Well, are you the one
with the fence?

[Todd] If you've ever seen
Fred's filing system

it's a series
of different cards

rubber banded together,
in different areas.

Phone numbers scratched out,

more current phone numbers,
addresses,

what days a person has off.

I've seen him fill
this out on the phone.

"So, what days
are you off again?"

And, "Oh, Thursdays
and Fridays,

I can climb with this guy."

He thinks nothing of making
that late night phone call.

He just pulls in and just would
throw his sleeping bag

down in our driveway
and crash out.

I remember having
kids walk past

in the morning going to school.
One of the kids said,

"Why do you make your grandpa
sleep in the driveway?"

[Alex] In the early '60s,

Shiprock only had
one route on it.

So, any other ascent

would result in a first ascent,
and that was Fred's forte.

So he tried to recruit
Eric Bjornstad and me

to do the climb with him,

and Eric agreed
to go with them and I didn't.

[Eric] When we went to Shiprock
in the early '60s,

the lady that I was
going with at the time

had tattoos over
about 80% of her body.

And Fred just hated her.

[Fred] I really don't even
know why he brought her.

She was not a climber.

What was she gonna do
there all that time?

You know, I think
it was a really bad choice.

[Eric] I spent 20 days on the
Southwest Buttress of Shiprock

with Fred and this lady,

and finally had a falling out
with Fred.

[Alex] When Eric decided
to quit,

Fred just couldn't handle it.

And of course
they were out there

in Fred's Thunderbird.

Fred wouldn't even take Eric
to the bus station,

so, Eric and his girlfriend
had to walk across the desert.

[Eric] We hiked back
out to the highway,

which was several miles,

and then hitchhiked
back to Seattle,

and Fred would dog us

he would follow us in the car
staying within view...

and then as we'd get let off,

he would drive by slowly.
[chuckles]

And he did that
all the way into Oregon.

He then got on the phone,

you know, every few hours
and would call me

at my office, and so when the
phone would ring,

the boss would answer the phone

and it'd be long distance

and it'd be a long discourse
of how great the climb is,

and how good the conditions are.

"Oh, yeah, Eric,

you know, lost interest,
you know,

there was no big problem."
Which was all a lie.

My boss started
getting angry with me

because, you know,
I was getting paid by the hour.

I figured, hey,
I've got a raise coming,

So, I kind of

asked my boss for the raise,

and when he didn't
give me the raise,

it was a good excuse
to quit and join Fred.

[Fred] When Eric
and I were there,

it was too windy,
too cold.

And when Alex came,
everything changed.

It got too warm.

[Alex] We were within 200 feet
of the summit

when Fred decided
that we couldn't go any further

because we only maybe had
a cup of water left

in our last bottle.

He was adamant
about going down,

and I was adamant
about going up.

And Fred, I think, almost
had a nervous breakdown.

Eventually I felt exhausted
just arguing with him

and I said,
"OK, let's go down,

but I'm not coming
back up again."

And he said, "That's fine."

[Fred] Luckily I'd been
in touch with Harvey Carter,

who I'd climbed with before.

[Eric] Harvey came out
and met Fred at Shiprock,

and within half a day
they reached the summit.

So, the first ascent
of the southwest buttress

was Fred Beckey
and Harvey Carter.

But Alex had spent
a whole week on the climb

and I'd spent 20 days
on the climb.

[Don] We have
an important announcement.

We're standing
on the summit of Mt. Seattle.

[Don] The culture of that time
was one of personal pride.

If you were a climber,
you kind of felt

that you were
a little bit special.

[Eric] It was very appealing
to do something

that few other people could do.

And back in the 60s it was
pretty esoteric, you know.

Why people climb now
I think is totally different.

[Peter] Some people talk about
the sport of mountaineering,

or the sport of climbing,
and for me it's just,

what sport is
so much about is rules.

You have to follow the rules,

I think what defines being up
in the mountains and climbing,

is that there is no rules.

[Ed Cooper] It was a fierce
competition in those days.

We didn't really
get along well.

I had my ideas
of what I wanted to do,

and he had his ideas
of what he wanted to do.

The first ascents
were the thing.

[Fred] Cooper might
have been one that...

he was interested,
maybe sometimes interested

in the same climbs I was,

and that's fine!

You know,
there was some competition.

But sometimes
I joined him on climbs, too.

[Ed Cooper] It became
a little bit of a game.

He wouldn't tell his partners
where they were going,

in case the weather turned bad
and they never got there,

then he wouldn't tip 'em off

about this first ascent
that he wants to do.

[Alex] Fred was only
focused on climbing,

and his partners had to be
dedicated the same way.

And he never felt sorry for you

if your climbing ended
up in a divorce.

[Dave] He's had to leave
a few burning bridges behind,

in order to live the life
that he's wanted to live.

[Eric] He went through
dozens and dozens of climbers.

He would have
falling-outs with them,

and he was a difficult
person to be around,

but I got along well with him

because I admired Fred
for his climbing ability

and just overlooked
the other faults

that he might have had.

[Nick] Now, climbers are
a pretty single-minded bunch.

But he's more single-minded
than the single-minded bunch.

People thought I was a fanatic,
they thought my friends
were fanatics,

and that's nothing,
nothing compared to Fred!

[Ed] He would kind of
talk almost constantly.

[Yvon] Fred will wear you down.
[chuckles]

He'll repeat the same thing
over and over again,

and that can drive you nuts.

[Alex] There were three
subjects that he would
talk about.

Of course, the first one
is mountains. The other,
of course, weather.

And the other subject
was women--

women he'd dated,
women that he wanted to date.

Women he should have dated.

Those were the three subjects
that you were stuck with

when you were
in a tent with Fred.

[Dave] You think
people considered you

sort of
a renegade climber?

They probably think
I'm pretty independent.

That's all right,
I don't care what they think.

I could care less.

[Timothy] There was a school
of thought that he was unsafe,

that what comes with being
a spectacular pioneer

is recklessness.

People died climbing with him.

[Dave] Have you lost
a lot of friends
in the mountains?

[Fred] A few, yeah.
Dick Berge on Mt. Baring.

That was a bad one.

And we lost Charles Shiverick
in an accident

on Mt. Serra
in the Mt. Waddington area...

or Waddington Range.

Very unfortunate.

I feel very, very,
very bad about it.

Many climbers have lost
some of their best friends
climbing.

it's not for everybody.

It definitely is not.

[Timothy] There is
an element of luck

involved
in these risky sports.

They never pinned the blame
specifically on him

for these deaths.

It was more like,
he lived and they didn't.

They took the fatal wrong step.

But, there was enough there
for the gossips

that he developed
a bad reputation.

[Fred] If risk appealed to me,

I'd go out in the jungle
and you know, hang around the
lions.

[Ed Cooper] He was,
to my knowledge,

never injured seriously
in an accident.

That's quite a feat

with all the climbing
that he has done.

[Layton] You were guaranteed

going back in the mountains
with Fred,

you weren't gonna get lost
at least.

He knew exactly
where he was all the time.

He'd spent enough years
in the mountains to know

that if you were gonna
continue doing this sort
of thing and survive,

well, you gotta be careful.

[Yvon]
The reason I'm alive today
is probably because of Fred

and the things I learned
alpine climbing with him.

There were probably 250
serious climbers in America.

I didn't know who Fred was
when I first met him,

but then I started
realizing that

he's one of the few guys

that actually searched out
hard alpine climbs.

[vintage narrator] Beautiful
Mt. Edith Cavell in Canada.

Many have wanted to scale

the North Face
of this mountain,

but no one has
ever dared it before.

[Yvon] When we tried to sign
out with the park warden,

he wouldn't sign us out,
he said, "It's suicide."

And so we said, "OK, we're
gonna go do it anyway."

[vintage narrator]
7:00 a.m., the men set out,

to risk their lives,

and there it is.

Are they worried?
You doggone right, they are!

But the goal is greater
than fear.

[Barry] It's an
interesting combination
where you have Yvon,

the young Yosemite specialist,

apprentice to the master
mountain climber.

[vintage narrator]
Not many of us can endure
such a prolonged struggle.

But Yvon and Fred and Dan
keep their goal in mind.

[Fred] We knew we could
climb the peak as far
as the difficulty goes.

The danger is rock fall
and possible avalanches.

We had a bad lightning storm
that pretty much frightened us.

So, that night we bivouacked
500 feet below the summit.

[vintage narrator]
Suddenly, the struggle is over.

And they become the first men
in history

to climb the dangerous
North Face

of the summit
of Mt. Edith Cavell.

There'll be time to
congratulate themselves later,

when they return
to the everyday world

where congratulations matter.

[Yvon] We got back down,

and there was a note on our car
from the warden that said,

"Good work, boys."

[Fred] After we climbed
Edith Cavell,

Chouinard and I went
to the Bugaboos

and that's when
we had our eyes set

on the South Tower of Howser.

That's the ultimate
in climbing,

is to do a first descent
on a beautiful line.

[Conrad] Fred's
a climber's climber.

He chose to do good routes
that were challenging,

that were aesthetically
beautiful.

[Jim] He has an artist's eye
for the lines.

[Corey] What Fred has given
back to climbing

is thousands of routes.

[Jim] There's probably
no human being on the planet

that has more routes
named after him.

The Beckey this,
the Beckey that,
the Beckey Direct,

the Beckey... [laughs]

[Steve Gunn]
* Hey mister shadow wreck

* Cruel and dusted mind

[Jim] He was
a very good researcher,

which gave rise whether or not

this mythological notebook
actually exists.

[Todd] You've always heard
about this black book
that Fred Beckey has.

[Dave] Of all
the unclimbed peaks

that he still wanted to do.

[Peter] It's become legendary
in American climbing.

People whisper that somebody
found the black book.

[Todd] The black book...

[Fred] There's no black book.

That was in the haul bag
until Tehipite Dome.

No.

I don't know
of any black book.

I would never have put
a black book...

Why would I put a black book
in a haul bag?

I mean, it doesn't make sense.
People make up stories.

I've never had a black book.

[Alex] He didn't need
a black book.

He remembered every mountain
that he ever saw pictures of,

or climbed,

or from the summit looking over
to the next range.

He knew what
he wanted to climb,

and he remembered
those details.

[beep]

[Fred] Hey, listen.
I'm planning on heading down

for Russell and Whitney
in a few days.

But we wanted one more climber,
we need somebody,

but so far we've had no luck.

I've called about 35 people,

this is the only way
I can do it this year.

It's the only way.

[Yvon] The fact that he still
has these high standards

of routes that he wants to do,

and he's really, we all know
he's really not capable of
doing 'em.

I don't think it's ego,
I think he's just an idealist.

Fred loves the mountains.

And he still wants
that lifestyle

of having
his car full of gear,

just in case.

He's a climber.

He's not gonna give up
till his last breath.

[Jim] You know, you damn well
wouldn't want your kid,

to grow up to be Fred Beckey

because of
this exclusive focus,

this unnatural focus.

[Timothy]
Other people have moved on.

They had normal lives,
they had families,

they had wives,
they have grandkids now.

They have their place
in history. Fred never did.

In some cases,
he may be a sad lonely man

who doesn't have anything.

But I think he also
appreciates the fact

that he can still
do what most of us can't.

[Dave] There's almost
this morbid

fear of being the one
who's with Fred when he goes.

Am I gonna be the one
who's known

as the guy
who killed Fred Beckey?

-[Dave] I can grab
your pack, Fred.
-[Fred] Ah, that's OK, buddy.

I feel guilty.

[Dave] Hey, Fred!

-[Fred] I got a guilt trip.
-[Dave] No, the main thing is
that you get up high.

-It doesn't matter
how you get there.
-Yeah, it does.

[Yvon] When I see him,
I think, "Gosh,

he's so much smaller
than I remember."

I remember him being
so much taller and straight.

Now he's getting... you know...

Like all of us,
he's getting there.

[Dave] What do you think?

[Fred] I don't know, man.

Don't take movies of me, shit.

I used to just run up here.

Maybe not run but...

You better save your battery.

I'm aware that you're trying
to make a movie,

you want to get
some climbing footage?

You want to get a movie about
climbing, not backpacking.

Me walking uphill,
crossing creeks.

I mean, OK, but how much
of that is valuable?

I don't know.

[Dave] How you feeling, Fred?

I don't know.

I just...

Let me lay on my ass here
for a minute.

Fucking lungs.

I mean, fuck,

I can't believe it's taken
three days to get here.

I don't think I can
cut the climb, I got
no fuckin' energy.

We're goin' so fuckin' slow,
I'm embarrassed.

It's ridiculous.

I don't know
what the fuck is wrong.

Yeah, maybe we just
ought to might bail.
I don't know.

I just don't know
how I'm gonna feel.

I hate to do it.
It pisses me off.

-[Dave] Should we get going?
-Yeah.

It's probably the smartest move.

I never deliberate this much.

Either I'm gonna do something
or I don't do it.

[Steve] Well, I think today,
Fred, with his age,

that he keeps going,
and he's kind of living

on memories and living
on a dream,

that he can still do it.

I say more power to him.

You know, if he does fall off
a steep trail or something,

I don't think he'd have
it any other way.

It's hard to tell,
was he just driven

because through what he did
would become immortal in a way?

Which it will.

[people chattering]

Come on, be more like Beckey.

-Take care. Yeah.
-[man] Good to meet you.

-Don't lose the books.
-I won't, don't worry!

In recent years,

there have been a number of
people who have recognized him

for what he is,
the last of a dying breed

of wilderness explorers.

[cheering & applause]

[people laughing]

I was perfectly OK,
until about three years ago.

Up in the Canadian Rockies,
I started feeling funny.

Don't know what it is.

I'm probably lucky to be alive.

And I've got a whole rack
of medicines

that the doctor wishes I would
take, but I don't do it.

Everything from A to Z,
which probably- vitamins,
vitamin C,

which would probably help.
I probably should do it.

You want any candy?

Definitely get some donuts,
I like donuts.

Trying to gain some weight.

The best donuts are
the Canadian ones,

but they don't have 'em here.

Favorite kind of donuts
are jelly donuts,

some kind of raspberry or jelly
or something,

or those donuts that have
cream puff inside of 'em.

They're pretty good.

We're here
in Canyonlands National Park,

near the sight of Moses.

This is the first time
I've been back since 1972.

I welcome the chance to climb
in a different environment

and the Utah desert
is about as different,

from my background.

I thought
it was very beautiful.

And unusual, I-

it took me a while
to get used to the rock.

I used to come out here
for climbing practice.

I think I was one of
the earliest people
to climb on the rock.

[Conrad] Fred is sort of
alone here in the States,

and who's his family?
Who's his support network?

You need to have community
to stay healthy.

Fred's family is
the climbing community.

[beep]

Right now,
I have a driving problem--

the drivers license people
don't think I'm a good driver.

Maybe I'm not,
but I think I am but whatever.

It's difficult because

I'd like to get somebody to go
skiing with this weekend,

and I'm not even sure
who I have.

I may not be able
to find anyone.

Are we going ski touring
tomorrow on Blewett Pass...

Can you please call me back?
I hope this works out.

But do call me,
I'm waiting

and would like
to hear from you.
Bye Bye

You wanna go down by the beach?

My brother was two and a half
years younger than I was.

He did everything I did.
One time,

my brother and I found
a couple of logs,

and we nailed boards together

and we made kind of
a makeshift raft,

and then went and paddled
across over to Vashon Island.

[Helmy] We went a hell of
a long ways out.

freighters and ocean liners
would come along.

[Fred] One ship did come by.

This ship created
waves and wakes.

I was worried that it
might shake the raft apart.

It's about three miles
over to Vashon Island.

We stayed on the island
maybe a night.

We abandoned
the raft over there.

We took the ferry boat back.

I think maybe
we were pushing the limits.

I think we were
pushing our luck.

I sure wouldn't dream
of doing it today.

[Helmy] I don't talk to Fred,
you know,

'cause he's always
too hard to reach.

[Dave] Have you
talked to Helmy?

[Fred] I made a trip there,

we had some
communication problems.

He's having
a tough time hearing.

[Helmy] He came to visit,
you know, over here,

but not to see me,

but to go into the Dolomites.

He changed his lifestyle.

He's just totally interested
and immersed in music,

which is OK,
but I think he overdoes it.

[Helmy] I'm proud of him.
He's a real hero.

And he's the most modest

damn person in the world,
you know?

There must be
a lot of people

that are just plain
resentful or jealous...

'cause Fred is different,
you know?

[Fred]
Wanna pick up a duck?

[Dave laughs]

They either hate the guy
or fear him, or love him.

[Fred] I don't know
if I'm contributing.

I'm not sure I am.

I hope I'm contributing
a little bit

to mountaineering education,

people's knowledge
of the mountains.

I think the dirtbag thing,

I don't know
where it really started.

I don't feel
that I've been a dirtbag.

I've always had a car.

And I've always had a purpose.

The first ascents I've done,

going to Kate's Needle
and Devil's Thumb,

Mount Hunter, Mount Deborah
in Alaska. The Waddington trip

I don't think you could call
that dirtbagging.

[Dave] So, do you feel
like you did everything
you wanted to do?

[Fred] Never, no.

I just scratched the surface.

Obviously, with climbing,
it's endless.

You know, you can make
a hit list

of things that you want
to climb or places to visit.

I'd love to go to Majorca,
the islands in Greece,

I haven't even been to
Thailand.

And even in North America,

there are mountains
in Colorado, Wyoming,

Montana that I haven't even
climbed, Mexico,

all of South America,
I've never done anything there.

You can't do all these things.

But I don't regret
having done it,

it may be better to look
forward to it,

maybe I'll get there
sometime.

I'd like to unwind
and get younger,

but I guess nobody's
figured that out yet.

[Dave] You have any single
one thing you value
most in life,

-[Dave] that you value
the very most?
-[Fred] Stay alive.

[Todd laughs]

That's important.

[Timothy] When we study
individuals who break
the mold,

we should not just study
artists and scientists

and authors and architects.

We should include Fred Beckey
among them.

Beckey was
trained classically,

but then he just
smashed the model.

Sometimes it just calls
for a single-minded bastard.

[Alex] So many of us grow up
and are stuck in dead end jobs

and can't get out of 'em.

You see this person
who has pursued his passion

and has pursued
it passionately.

And we all know instinctively,

that's what I should have done

from the time
I was 18 years old.

[Fred] You know, I could
say to heck with it
and go play golf.

Take up cards.

Sit around the picnic table.

It's a lot more fun,
a lot easier.

But I guess I have
a certain amount of motivation

or drive to go out
and do these things.

Why, I can't explain it.

I'd rather do something
than do nothing.

Put it that way.

-[wind blowing]
-[panting]

[Jeff screams] Come on,
Fred, get up there!

-[Dave] Yeah, do it!
-Yes!

Yeah! Woo! Yeah, buddy!

Nice, Fred!

[Fred] Lots of fun.

[Vasiliki] What I believe
about most people

is as they get older,
they don't necessarily
get any wiser.

In fact, rarely.

They just become more so
what they've always been.

And I think, probably,
with Fred, it's the same thing.

He is...

...etched in stone.

[music playing]

[Steve Gunn]
* There's a constant motion

* Makes you feel
like the ocean *

* Hey there nature driver man

* You are a welcome guest

* Man with that wicked eye

* Will lead you to your rest

* Moving through the seasons

* And I'm hoping for the best

I remember once climbing
at Cal Dome with Fred Beckey,

and there was this swarm of
bees up ahead on the trail.

So we all shouted to Fred,

"Hey, Fred, you know,
there's bees up there!"

You know,
Fred couldn't hear shit,
"What?"

And he walked
right through the bees,

and, you know,
one or two must have stung him,

and he kind of
just like slapped himself

and grunted
and just kept on walking.

And all the other guys
were like,

"Fuck that, we're not gonna
walk through the bees."

So, they start, like,

bushwhacking
to cut the switchback,

and I sort of in my own mind,
I thought,

"Man, if Fred Beckey's
like eighty-something
years old.

If that guy
can walk through the bees,

I'm gonna walk
through the fuckin' bees.

Like, I'm pretty tough,
it's no big deal."

So, I start marching
up through the bees,

and a bee went
right up my shorts

and just got me
right in the scrotum.

and I just couldn't...

There was nothing you could do.
I mean, it's a natural
reaction.

I ripped my shorts off
and I'm trying to kill the bee,

and all the guys are
like laughing hysterically,

like, they just think
it's the funniest thing.

And it really hurt.

And Fred's
completely oblivious.

We get to the base of the crag
about 20 minutes later,

and I say to Fred, "Did you
get stung by any bees?"

"What?"

"Bees, like,
did any bees sting you?"

"I dunno. Maybe, maybe."

And looked at his hand
and there was, like,
a stinger

still in his hand,
and I just thought,

"Goddamn, like, this guy,

he is so passionate

and so freakin' tough.

And that other stuff,
like pain,

doesn't affect him,
apparently."

[Steve Gunn]
* Highway is fully stacked, *

* think we'll turn around.

* Go down another road

* and through a
different town. *

* Feel the direction like

* a rock upon the moon.

* Come on the overpass

* and hope to get there soon.

* Hope to get there soon.

When he said,
"I really wanna climb

the East Buttress on Whitney."

I was like, "Well, why not?

The guy's a legend,
let's go have a good time."

And as we're going
down there, he's like,

"I think I've got it this time,
I can climb,

it's just, I have trouble
sleeping at altitude."

And being a problem solver,
I'm already thinking,

"well, how can I help this guy
achieve his dreams?"

And so, the first day
we hike up,

and we get to camp that night
and it's cold,

and he pulls out
this inappropriately
light sleeping bag,

with a tiny little
Therm-a-Rest.

Like, the guy's
not gonna sleep.

I couldn't
sleep in that thing.

Every so often, if people have
trouble sleeping at altitude,

you know, a little sleeping
pill kind of helps.

So, I grind up a little bit
of this

sleeping tablet into his tea,
and he drinks it,

and I don't tell him
anything about it.

We wake up the next morning,
and he's like,

"Dave, I feel great,
I'm ready to charge!"

So that night, there was no
appropriate time

to slip him the mickey.

So, I said, "Fred,
I've got a confession,

I put a little sleeping pill
in your tea last night,

and that's probably
why you slept well,

we should do it."
And he's like, "What!"

He was just convinced that,
that's not the thing to do.

So, he didn't sleep a wink,
woke up miserable,

and we didn't get a chance
to climb Mt. Whitney that trip.

Dave Nettle had given me
a great tip,

Just sneak a little bit of,
like, a sleeping pill

into Fred's drink,

Sure enough, gave it to Fred
and watched him get drowsy

and then, you know, got him
into his sleeping bag

and, it sounds like I'm drug-
like we drugged the guy, but

um... well, we kinda did.

But the point is, he jumped up
that morning, he was refreshed,

he slept well, put his pack on,
hiked up to the base

and climbed
the East Face of Mt. Whitney.

[Steve Gunn]
* There's a constant motion

* Makes you feel
like the ocean *

* Hey there nature driver man

* You are a welcome guest