by Jeff Johnson


I first met Fred Beckey about 6 years ago at the Crossroads Cafe in Joshua Tree. He was sitting at a corner booth surrounded by young women (in their 40’s), empty pint glasses, and wearing an ear-to-ear grin. I was told he had more first ascents than anyone in the world. He was in his early 80s and still going at it. We were introduced and the first thing he said to me was, “What?” I hadn’t said anything yet. Aside from his earing aid, which he never uses, Fred was as vibrant and alive as a twenty-year-old. He still is. Throughout the years Fred has stopped by the Patagonia offices in Ventura to break up his long road trips. It’s always a treat. Everyone in the building can recognize that voice when he enters the photo department and hovers over Jane Sievert’s desk, commenting on photos and offering beta for obscure climbs.[Above: Portrait of Fred in Ventura. December, 2010. Photo: Jeff Johnson]


We’ve been seeing a lot more of Fred since the inception of his new book: Fred Beckey’s 100 Favorite North American Climbs. It has been a massive undertaking. “It took us just over two years from our first visit with Fred in Seattle in November 2009 to getting the printed book in people’s hands in November 2011. But Fred was working on it many years before that,” says editor John Dutton. “It was by far the longest and most complex book we have done to date.“Fred is meticulous about the details. He is old school and works only on hard copy. He would show up with these hand-written, coffee-stained additions to the book written on the back of scrap paper (fliers to events and library notices primarily) with letters - A, B, C, etc. – on the notes and in the printed manuscript itself showing where each should go. He took the manuscript along with him on his travels and kept it together with various rubber bands, manila folders, and binder clips. It was printed large format on 11 x 17" pages and double-spaced and weighed a ton. I still have a couple of rounds and it takes up almost the whole top drawer of my filing cabinet.” Project coordinator Jennifer Sullivan: “I’d get these random calls from Fred regarding the book. He would be on some peak somewhere with his cell phone. He never uses his hearing aid so I’d have to yell. Our conversations would get so loud I would have to crawl under my desk so I wouldn’t disturb everyone. I’d be under there half the time, the two of us just yelling at each other.”To work on the book Fred would often drive down from Washington and on the rare occasion, fly. Each one of us in the creative department has had the pleasure of assisting him: picking him up from the airport, taking him to his hotel room, dinner, lunch, whatever. No matter how mundane the assignment, Fred makes you feel like you are both involved in some special mission. And everyone inevitably ends up with an entertaining story. In December 2010 Fred came through town to work on the book. He rarely deviated from work and would push on all day and into the night. But this time Fred really wanted to get some climbing in. Yvon Chouinard happened to be in town as well. So they decided to go up to the Sespie Wall above Santa Barbara and climb. During the 1950s, at the age of 18, Yvon served as an apprentice to Fred. Together they bagged many first ascents, most of which have become classics. It had been 40 years since the two have tied in together. Yvon now 72, and Fred 87, they roped up for two pitches of varied sandstone. Their escapades during their formative years have become legend. It was an honor to hear them recount those times while climbing together once again.

[Yvon and Fred racking up for the Sespie Wall. Photo: Jeff Johnson]


[Fred on pitch 1. Photo: Jeff Johnson]


[Yvon belaying Fred on pitch 2. Photo: Jeff Johnson]


[Yvon and Fred re-hashing old times after the climb. Photo: Jeff Johnson]Later that week I asked photo editor Jane Sievert if I could take Fred’s portrait. He was a little reluctant because he wanted to focus on the book, but he agreed nonetheless. We set up a time and a place. I was waiting for Fred when I got a call from Jane. “Look,” she said, “He’s not into it. He just wants to work on the book – doesn’t want to mess around with taking photos. So I had to trick him. I told him I was just re-parking my car and to get in. He’s with me and we’re on the way. You have 10 minutes!” Though he was sort of duped into it, he was more than accommodating once he arrived. But I could tell he wanted to get on with things. Fred is not one to sit still. I shot two rolls of film in about 15 minutes. Wrapping things up, I looked over and he was rubbing his eyes, probably bored out of his mind.


[Portrait of Fred in Ventura. December, 2010. Photo: Jeff Johnson]As he was leaving I asked what he was up to after Ventura. “I’m driving to Jackson Hole,” he said almost yelling. “It’s ski season!”I pictured Fred, 87 years old, driving through the night on winding mountain roads in winter conditions.”“Are you going alone?” I said. “What?” he yelled putting his hand to his ear. The car wound silently out of site.In the introduction to Fred’s book, Barry Blanchard quotes Tim McAllister declaring Fred as “the grandfather of the road trip”. It couldn’t be truer.Note: Patagonia Books has taken on some of the most unique and ambitious publications over the years. The authors and photographers do not come out of the blue; they are part of an extended family – the result of long-lasting relationships, which becomes very personal. The process can be both emotionally and physically taxing. It can require sitting in one’s living room sifting through boxes of photographs and notes, recording and transcribing hours of conversations, and a ton of back and fourth correspondence. The result is always rewarding. I would like to applaud those who worked on this book.


Editor: John Dutton, Book designer: Christina Speed Project coordinator (probably the toughest job): Jennifer Sullivan Photo editors: Jane Sievert and Cameron RidgewayProduction: Rafael DunnThe topos were drawn from Fred’s originals by Clay Wadman. Barry Blanchard wrote the foreword.Jeff Johnson is a freelance writer and staff photographer for Patagonia. His sailing trip from California to Chile was featured in the film 180° South (his writing and photographs also appear in the book). You can tune into Jeff's Beyond and Back series right here on The Cleanest Line.

Parents new and old will be especially touched by this episode of The Dirtbag Diaries. Show host Fitz Cahall sets the stage:

No one skins uphill to put together a splitboard efficiently. They do it to shred down. Making a transition at a belay is part of the process, not the main event. Transitions may not be sexy, but they make or break us. They are the difference between a cold night spent shivering on a ledge and walking out in perfect evening light. Almost five years after I wrote the Monoboard and started The Diaries, I find myself in a metaphorical transition. My passions run from the mountains to the Seattle music scene and I've become adept at moving between them. My life is about to change. My passions won't. It's time to refine the transition.

Listen to "Transitions - Efficiency Manifesto"(mp3 - right-click to download)

Visit dirtbagdiaries.com for links to download the music from "Transitions - Efficiency Manifesto" or to hear past episodes of the podcast. You can subscribe to the show via iTunes and RSS, or connect with the Dirtbag Diaries community on Facebook and Twitter.

Special shout out to Walker Cahall for this episode's clever show graphic, and to Fitz and Becca Cahall as they near delivery time.

One world, one love, one blog. Yesterday we heard from an East German employee, today, India native Harini Ayer shares her Short on The Dirtbag Diaries. Host Fitz Cahall sets the stage:


Throughout the course of the Diaries, I'd hazard to guess that hundreds of you have written in about the struggle many of us -- me included -- experience between work and our passions. Even if work is one of your passions, the mountains, rivers, all the tiny places in this great wide world can seem impossibly far away. We are put in positions where we have to decide between pragmatism and passion. Harini Ayer's story epitomized this struggle. She came to the States from Southern India almost a decade ago and fell in love with this country, her research and climbing. Her ability to stay here has always been tied to her visa. Her work was a form of upward mobility. But there was a catch. If Harini switched jobs, or took a break from her research, she lost her ability to stay here. Climbing took a back seat, until eventually Harini made a stand for herself, her style of life and took an incredible risk.









 Listen to "Upward Mobility"(mp3 - right-click to download - music credits)


In between full-length episodes of The Dirtbag Diaries, listeners like you have the chance to narrate your own story on the show -- these are the Shorts. To submit your story for consideration, visit The Dirtbag Diaries and look for the Story Suggestions? link in the sidebar. You can subscribe to the show via iTunes and RSS, or connect with Fitz via Facebook and Twitter.

Most of our employees have interesting stories to tell, but few have spent 15 months in an East German jail after abandoning a plan to somersault the Berlin Wall from a trampoline before trying to escape the country on foot.
Holger Bismann, managing director of Patagonia Europe, was generous enough to share some of his experiences of what it was like to live under totalitarian rule in East Germany, keep alive a relationship with his future wife while in jail, then cross the border into freedom after the Wall came down.
1) What is your most vivid memory of living in East Germany before the Wall came down? The thing that reminds you of that time the most?
My most vivid memories were of saying "good bye" to the good things about the life I had there for 27 years, right before my friend Klaus and I escaped. We couldn't actually say good bye to anyone because it was too dangerous to tell anybody about our plans. We couldn't even say anything to our closest friends or parents, simply to protect them and ourselves from danger.
 . . . hit the jump to continue reading "One Man's Road to Patagonia"
[A photo from earlier, and easier, times - before the personal ordeal that would eventually lead to freedom from East Germany. Photo: Holger Bisman collection]

Anyway, for five years, as students at the University in Leipzig, we had been squatting in an old house. After we graduated in 1988 and right before we escaped, we had a secret farewell. We organized a huge party in the backyard of the house with all our friends. A rock band played and it was great to see everybody before the summer break - and not knowing when or if we would see our friends again. It was a very strange feeling, as you can imagine. And I haven't seen many of the people who came to the party since.2) You were an athlete even then, correct? What sports did you practice? Did you compete?
Correct. I'd done many sports from the time I was 6 years old. I grew up in a mountain region where we did lots of winter sports. I practiced luge for many years and was part of an elite program, but got kicked out when I was 13 years old because my uncle jumped the border and went to the West. I was penalized for my family not being "politically clean and reliable" anymore. That's how it was in East Germany. My dream of going to the Olympics was suddenly over.
Then I started to practice sports on my own and became an endurance athlete. I ran marathons and ultra races, did triathlons for many years and cross-country ski races. At the same time, I loved the mountains and did lots of trips through Eastern Europe, either biking, hiking or climbing. Later I studied sports science, became a coach and teacher and finally moved to France. I have always stayed connected with sport and my competitiveness is still alive. I am now hooked on cycling and when I see someone far ahead of me in a climb, there is no way I can slow down and I push myself until I am at his back wheel.
3) You met your wife, Christelle, while you were in East Germany, but she wasn't from there, right? How did you meet?
We met when I was at the University in Leipzig. I always had to make some money to finance my trips during summer break, so I worked as a lifeguard and sport animator in a kid's camp. That was always great fun. I met Christelle (she is French) there in 1986 when she came as chaperone for a wild group of French kids from poor families and 'sponsored' by the French unions. It was quite unusual for kids from Western Europe to come to the East and there were always people checking us out to make sure we didn't get too close.
Anyway, first Christelle and I became friends. We were falling in love and I promised her I'd learn French. She didn't believe me and thought I was just another guy promising something - but I did it. The day she left I jumped on my bike and went straight to the nearest book store and bought my first French book. Four weeks later I wrote my first letter in French to her - it was two pages and took a whole day to write. She was impressed and after a year my French became pretty solid.
4) I'm sure you've told the story of your escape from East Germany many times, but what was the trampoline plan? And how did you actually try to escape?
As a sport student in East Germany, we were asked every year to participate in a big sports show for the government to show the world how great and powerful communism was. There were hundreds of athletes doing a synchronized show in a stadium. It included lots of acrobatics, one of which was to jump over a three-meter-high ring from a mini trampoline doing a somersault in the air and landing on our feet. We did this thousands of times and my best friend Klaus and I got the idea that this could be a way to get over the wall. After the show we kept practicing this in the gym for many nights every week. We had great gym facilities at our university.
Ultimately, we didn't do it after Klaus's girlfriend asked him if she could come with us. We had planned our escape and practiced our jump for three years, but physically, she couldn't have done it, and hadn't practiced at all. So we instead decided to cross the East German border through the Czech Republic, and from there to Hungary and then into Yugoslavia.
We got caught by the Hungarian guards on a moonless night at 2:00 am while trying to cross the Hungarian/Yugoslavian border. That was it. The dream was over as we stood in front of a young 18-year-old kid pointing an AK-47 at us. He was as scared as we were since the communists were always telling them that anyone who tried to cross the border was a criminal and extremely dangerous. We didn't want to get killed so we didn't even try to run away. We always knew that we could end up in jail. But we knew that if we ended up in jail, we had a 95 percent chance that after our sentence, the communists would let us go and wouldn't want us back in their country. So this would mean that we bought our liberty with a couple of months sitting in prison.
5) I'm sure you'd thought about escaping many times. Was there one thing that finally pushed you to turn the idea into reality? Do you remember the night before your escape (or day if you tried to escape at night) and how you felt?
We were thinking about escaping for years. Many people in the eastern countries were constantly thinking about it and many are still doing it all over the world today, leaving behind dictatorial countries and other situations to get a bit more freedom and democracy. The idea develops in your head over the years and you eventually make the tough decision to leave your family and friends and the place where you grew up. You do this with not much hope of when or if you will see these people again or when or if you will return to the place where you grew up.
It's difficult to imagine, but this is how it was. To get liberty, we had to make a decision about where we wanted to live in the world. It had a huge impact on our lives. And the worst thing was that we were unable to share those thoughts with anyone. Not even with our friends and family since we could endanger them and they might also end up in jail if the communists were to discover our plans. All those years, I only shared my plans with Klaus. It was a huge process dealing with this over the years. It was kind of a relief to finally get on the road and to get it over with, but it was also very weird that there were many things, places and people that we wouldn't see for years - maybe forever.
The moment we got caught, the hope we had lived for was just gone. My first thought was about my parents and my sister - they didn't have a clue what we were up to. Then I wondered when I would see Christelle again and what would happen to our future. My brain was just spinning and that's what it continued to do for a couple of weeks while we realized how our lives were going to be for the next couple of months or years - being disconnected from the outside world and even further away from freedom in East Germany.
6) You spent 15 months in jail as a result. How did you get through it? Did you learn anything from the experience?
I have to say I took it well. I learned a lot there about living in a small space with many people - no privacy - not even on the toilet. I had to share everything. I got to know people (criminals) who never had a great life - no education, no security, not much family and love. I learned how those people got to where they were, how society and government puts people in jail for political or criminal reasons and they don't do much to reintegrate them and help them to live a normal life. If a young kid ends up in jail, they don't have much chance to go back to a regular life after leaving. They need strong support from family or friends and that's what most of them don't have. Or they need a strong mind to make it through. They can't count much on the government for any of this - who gives a job to someone who comes out of jail? Not many companies do. In the end, the guys coming out have no job, no family, no friends and to survive, they usually start stealing again. Then they return to jail where finally they feel at home and respected by the people sharing the same life.
In jail you learn to adjust your life and stop complaining about what you don't have. You have to show respect to people who are in difficult situations or have done terrible things - or who even annoy or disrespect you. In addition to all that, you have to keep your brain and body working and stay positive. If you don't you will die.
What did I learn from it? - Bad things can happen in life but there are always worse. If you hold onto hope, you will get through it. Just imagine all the people in jail in China, North Korea or Iran, probably for nothing and for years under hard conditions. Being in an East German jail was probably like being in a substandard hospital compared to what is happening in those countries. You learn to be more[…]

Team Rios Libres is back with an update from the Neff Glacier, at the headwaters of the Río Baker. The team's first two reports can be found here (1, 2). With the Neff at their backs, the team followed the river to the sea, doing their best to document the diversity, beauty, and wildness of the region. Before completing their journey, the team will be checking in on a region of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field last believed to be last visited and documented by explorer Eric Shipton during 1960-61 expedition.

Reports from the Rios Libres team are that their travels are proceeding smoothly, but the impacts of the quakes continue to be felt and much support is still needed (information about how to help is here).

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The Voice of Ice (a report from Craig Childs)

At night I lay in my tent listening to the thunder of collapsing seracs, multi-ton columns of ice breaking free and falling a thousand feet. Smack, crack, rumble, groan. In these deeply-cut canyons, echoes build and fade. The ice-bound head of the Rio Baker is not a stable or quiet place.

[Top, Timmy O'Neill walks the line on the Neff Glacier. Above, left - Craig Childs watches as a huge chunk of ice falls 20 stories down the
Neff Glacier. Photos: James Q Martin]

In the morning we walk along an exposed wall of the Neff Glacier. A thirteen-story slab breaks away, tilts in slow motion, bursts into powder and bergs. How do you not feel fragile in this landscape?

On the ice, crampons crunch across a surface darkened by wind blown dust. The sound of meltwater emerges from deep below us, mumblings in the belly of the glacier. I peer down a hole where shadows within shadows lead into a blue Jules Verne landscape, journeying into the source of the Baker. Oxygen-rich ice near the surface is white. Below it, baby blue falls into a saturated indigo so deep and rich it seems perilous. Becoming aware of the depths, I feel dizzy.

Every hole and crack emits a sound. Some places are whispers, and some rumble like a ship engine below deck. Unseen rivers roar and hiss as one of the largest ice caps in the world melts under our feet.

Jonathan Leidich, a local glacier expert whose knowledge comes from 15 years on the ice, takes us to a measurement station that he maintains in conjunction with CECS, Centro de Estudios Cientificos de Valdivia here in Chile. A PVC pipe sticks up from a hole. Leidich runs a tape measure, says that a month ago the surface of the glacier was six feet over our heads. That much has melted in 30 days across this entire expanse.

Hearing this, I take in the scope around us, daggers and ridges of ice, holes shaped like giant's navels. Ice stretches as far as I can see, rising up through the teeth of mountains where the Patagonia Ice Cap spills through from the other side. I can feel it all melting. This is how the river starts.

[Above, right - Craig Childs gets an up-close view of the Neff Glacier. Above, left - Taking a handful of perfect glacier water - some of the cleanest in the world. Photos: James Q Martin]

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Check out the video below for a better view of how much ice has been lost from the Neff Glacier in the past year. Facebook readers can find this video here.