American mountaineering great Fred Beckey, aged 94

Mountain climber Fred Beckey, who wrote dozens of books and is credited with notching more first ascents than any other American mountaineer, has died at the age of 94.

Megan Bond, a close friend who managed his affairs, said Beckey died of natural causes in her Seattle home.

“He was an extraordinary mountaineer. He also had a personality and humour that almost dwarfed the mountains around him,” Ms Bond said. “He was a brilliant writer. He was a scholar. “He lived based on what was important to him, and he was not going to sell out.”

Beckey was known as much for his eccentric personality as for his singular obsession with climbing.

He was born in Germany and moved to the United States as a child.

His family settled in Seattle, where he got his first taste of hiking and scrambling with the Boy Scouts and later The Mountaineers club.

In 1942, he and his younger brother Helmut wowed the climbing community with an impressive second ascent of Mount Waddington in British Columbia.

He also climbed in the Himalayas and China. “Fred got the golden age of climbing first ascents,” Alex Bertulis, a former climbing partner said last year.

“That will be his legacy.”

Beckey is survived by his younger brother Helmut.

Beckey was also an author.