By Megan Bond

Seattle Native & Famed Mountaineer, First Ascensionist Never Stops Climbing

He never stops. Fred Beckey, the famed Seattle mountaineer, at ninety-years of age, remains restless and relentless.

The legendary, nonagenarian Beckey leaves later this month for a remote, mountainous region in Sichuan, China, for an attempted climb of Celestial Peak.

The pyramid shaped, majestic mountain, known also as Pomiu, is at 17,760 feet elevation and is rarely climbed.

Beckey has had his eye on Celestial Peak for nearly a decade. It was first climbed by an eight party American Team lead by Allen Steck and Ted Vaill in 1983.

Beckey hand-picked each of the six expedition members that will accompany him on this five week undertaking.

The team members include Cameron Kern of Flagstaff, AZ; Erik Harz, from Sanata Barbara, CA; Felix Parham, from Flagstaff AZ; Megan E. Bond, also of Seattle; Neil Kauffman of Mammoth Lakes, CA; and William Harz (Erik Harz’s father) a non-climber from Carpenteria CA., who will travel along as a support and logistics member.

Beckey is no stranger to remote travel to foreign places and high altitudes. His first trip to Asia was in 1955 as a member of the International Himalayan Expedition that set out to climb Lhotse, near Mt. Everest.

Last year he traveled to the Himalayas of northern India and explored the upper-reaches of Sikkim. Beckey also accompanied team member Bond on her most recent trip to Nepal last October, for a climb in Lang Tang in the Himalayas, near the border with Tibet.

He has traveled to the Himalayas and Asia frequently over his lifetime; this is at least his sixth trip to China.

Funding for the climb is being helped along by Adidas, the world leader in the sporting goods industry, and who is generously supplying expedition level gear and clothing for the trip. Feathered Friends, one of the premier expedition outfitters in the country and based in Seattle, is contributing down-booties for comfort at camp.

Beckey is a noted author, scholar and historian and a speaker in high-demand. His latest book, considered his magnum opus, ‘FRED BECKEY’S 100 FAVORITE NORTH AMERICAN CLIMBS’, was published by Patagonia Books just last year (2012) and weighs in at a hefty seven-pounds. The large and impressive book spans seventy-years of his climbing career.

[Editor note: Megan Bond is a Bethel High graduate]