Early Years
"Beckey," as he is known to his climbing companions, was born near Cologne, Germany, and his family emigrated to the United States when he was three, ending up in Seattle, Washington. He started climbing in the North Cascades as a teenager, learning the basic concepts from The Mountaineers but quickly going on to harder climbs.
He attended the University of Washington and received a degree in business administration. He worked as a delivery truck driver, which left him time for climbing.
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.
Read more about this topic: Fred Beckey
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.”
—Henry Reed (1914–1986)
“The years like great black oxen tread the world,
And God the herdsman treads them on behind,
And I am broken by their passing feet.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)