Fred “F-in” Beckey
Recently, the New York Times had a nice little article about Fred Beckey.
The article reminded me of a story about Fred Beckey from my good, old friend Darrell. Darrell is a wild one, to say the least. He’s the one who drove straight through from Georgia to Colorado, revved up on can after can of Red Bull. I met him outside my house when he arrived and he promptly popped a couple of Percosets and washed them down with Jack Daniels, straight out of the bottle. Then he said, “I need a drink. Let’s go to the bar.” We headed downtown where he ordered two double scotches on the rocks and a beer and then asked what I would have.
Darrell is a helicopter mechanic for the National Guard and has been stationed in Oregon. Never mind that he won’t fly in any of the Blackhawk helicopters he works on every day, instead referring to them as “crashhawks” and “lawn darts.”
One weekend he sauntered up to a campfire in Smith Rock. Once inside the circle, someone whispered to him, “hey, that’s Fred Beckey over there.” “Fred Fucking Beckey?!” Darrell yelled in astonishment as every head in the circle turned in his direction with a curious glare towards this interesting newcomer.
As the night wore on, Darrell struck up a conversation with Fred and they made plans to climb the next day. The next day, Darrell took the lead on an easy 5.6 or 5.7 multi-pitch climb and promptly marched up the climb. 20, 30, 40 feet Darrell climbed without a piece of protection. Fred called up, “how about placing some pro?” “Oh yeah, just a second.” At 50 feet with still no pro, Fred called up, “how about that pro?” “Yep, just a second.” With another 10 feet, Darrell showed no sign of placing gear and this is when Fred tugged on the rope and said, “place some damn pro Darrell!” Finally, he relented. I asked Darrell why he was obsessed with purposely running it out. “Because I was climbing with Fred Beckey,” as if that were explanation enough.
When it was Fred’s turn to come up the pitch, Darrell described to me the tightest belay he had ever given to anyone, ever. I asked him why he felt the need to give such a tight belay to the living legend Fred Beckey, the prominent first ascentionist and mountaineer extradorinaire. “Dude, he’s like 80 and I didn’t want to be known as the guy who broke Fred Beckey’s hip!”




