Among climbers, he's at the peak: Fred Beckey's written a new book

The first thing you notice: The vagabond wears a jacket and tie — itself an event so noteworthy that a friend, when told, cracks, "Really? Well, good for him."

But when the man Outside magazine once dubbed the "über-dirtbag of climbers" starts flipping pages at a book signing, what you focus on are the hands — two big, rough-hewn mitts that may have spent more time caressing granite than any other pair on Earth.

These hands belong to Fred Beckey, perhaps North America's most accomplished and dedicated mountaineer, who, at 80, remains so devoted to his sport that he's still planning trips abroad to make secret first-ascents of faraway mountains.

Or at least that's what friends say.

The man who literally wrote the book on Northwest mountaineering with his three-volume, 1,100-page guide to climbing in the Cascades, is back on the public-lecture circuit to promote a new book, "Range of Glaciers," a comprehensive account of exploration in the North Cascades.

He's giving slide shows and readings and has even done an hourlong interview on TVW, the state's public-affairs network.

But Beckey, whose reclusive nature has been mythologized in books, such as New York Times reporter Timothy Egan's "The Good Rain," is so notoriously circumspect about his pending adventures, it's never entirely clear where he's going — only where he's been.

When interviewer Steve Jones asked Beckey during his TVW appearance about his desire to summit untrammeled mountains, Beckey's response seemed a perfect riddle, a metaphor for a life spent throwing would-be competitors off his trail.

"I have a desire to climb unclimbed peaks, but it really doesn't make that much difference to me whether a peak's been climbed or not climbed," he said.

"Oh, he'll mislead you if he wants to," said Alexander Bertulis, a friend and mountaineering partner who has known Beckey 40 years. "I once found this beautiful peak on the Coast Range of British Columbia. I saw it from the water, and saw it from the air. I asked him if he'd be interested in doing it with me and he said, 'Oh nah, it's been done.' A few months later he and a Canadian climber got the first ascent."

Beckey was the first to climb hundreds of mountains, some by multiple routes, in the Cascades, Alaska and British Columbia. He's believed by most mountaineers to have racked up more first ascents than any other American, according to Outside and Climbing magazines.

From his early outings in 1939 with Lloyd Anderson, founder of REI, to ascents of Alaska's Devil's Thumb and Mount Edith Cavell, with Patagonia outdoor-clothing company founder Yvon Chouinard in 1961, his life has been a road map of U.S. climbing. He put new routes up Alaska's Mount McKinley, and has said his personal favorite is a rock climb up the granite spire Liberty Bell at Washington Pass.

And those were all nearly a half-century ago.

In the past decade, he has rock-climbed in California, and he even tried to climb a section of the Great Wall of China (which he rated a moderate difficulty).

Beckey is legendary for putting climbing before all, as well as for his reclusive lifestyle. He's known to have moved around a lot within Washington and Oregon and calls himself a vagabond. His publicist says she can only reach him by e-mail.

Over the years, other mountaineers have spent weeks and months unsuccessfully trying to track him down just to get information about secret ascents.

He's rumored to have crashed strangers' weddings solely for the food. Climbing magazine once dedicated an entire story to the search for his mythic little "black book" of climbs. Famous rock jock Todd Skinner once made a special trip to Mexico, just to find a wall of granite that Beckey had claimed to discover.

"He's very focused on climbing; that is his life," Bertulis said. "He's never had a family. Never been married. For the last few years he's been rooming with a friend in Bellevue. He is conversant in many subjects. He's written a lot. But he always wants to be climbing."

Pokes fun at himself

At a reading last week at Elliott Bay Book Co. in Seattle, Beckey poked fun at his own reputation, wondering out loud why someone like him would write books.

His eyes watered under the lights. His hearing seemed to come and go. But his booming voice made it clear he had lost none of his signature confidence.

On the town of Concrete, on the Skagit River, he said: "I recall that as a place I don't like very much, because you have to keep an eagle-eye out for the local police." With an impish grin, he added: "I even put that in the guidebook."

Of a visit to Ottawa, he recalled driving around and around looking for a parking lot, and finally found one. He parked there day after day only to discover it was a dedicated lot for members of the Supreme Court of Canada.

But perhaps the most Beckey-esque moment came when he recounted his efforts to describe early Cascades prospectors. They apparently weren't too conscientious about documenting their efforts.

"If you're looking for gold the last thing you're going to do is tell everybody else where you're looking," he said.

Bertulis, his close friend, said Beckey is planning another trip to China this year, where he hopes to be the first to reach the summit of other peaks. But only Beckey knows for sure.

Craig Welch: 206-464-2093 or cwelch@seattletimes.com