Femme Beckey Expedition: May 16th-June 8th, 2023
Written by: Miriam Caron, July 2023
Expedition Members: Lizzie Wenger, Miriam Caron, Sierra Smith, & Ella Meyer
The inspiration: January 8th, 2023
I fled Southern California when I finished my undergrad, excited to return to the peaks and evergreens of the Northwest. Before I skipped town I raided a bookshelf of one of my closest friends. Among the books I took (still to be returned) was a book of essays called Classic Krakauer: Essays on Wilderness and Risk by Jon Krakauer.
A few weeks later in early January while visiting my sister in Seattle, I admired the multitude of peaks surrounding the city from the Olympic range–Mt. Rainier herself in the North Cascades. While there, I read Krakauer’s essay Fred Beckey Is Still on the Loose. I was captivated by Beckey’s summit hunger. I read that, “When Beckey was on a roll, he would come down from the mountains only long enough to replace exhausted partners, which he went through like carpenters go through nails, and get the next weather forecast.”
An iconic picture of Beckey
Beckey sporting a state of the art harness circa 1954
Beckey being the original dirtbag
In an excerpt from Jon Krakauer on the Incredible Career of Mountaineer Fred Beckey, Beckey was trying to convince Krakauer and Beckey's long-time climbing partner, Mark Bebie, to climb an ambitious project that was too distant to be practical. Krakauer and Bebie staged a mutiny and forced Beckey to accept the closer, more mellow ascent of Sahale (sah-ha-leh) instead. Beckey sputtered:
“I don't know why you guys even came on this trip. If you didn't want to climb something worthwhile. Something worth climbing, Jesus Christ, I don't know. I did Sahale 30 years ago with a girl, and she'd never even climbed before, Jesus Christ.”
I was enthralled with the idea of doing a back to back mountaineering trip where I could go from the summit of one mountain to the base of another in a single day. However, after reading Krakauer's essays and Beckeys not-so-subtle misogonistic quotes, I was inspired to follow in Beckey's steps to prove to his ghost that being femme doesn't equate to being less-than in the climbing world. Thus the seed was planted. I wanted to knock out as many bucket list peaks in as little time as possible without any cis men present. That very evening I called my climbing partner, Lizzie, to tell her my insane idea and thus Femme Beckey was born!
Miriam showing off Femme Beckey's gear haul. A Mountain Shop sponsorship led to the perfect collection of necessary equipment!
The adventure wagon
Miriam looking fly in her training fit from Mountain Shop
CLICK HERE to read Part 2 of their adventure, which follows them on their very first climb of the Femme Beckey Expedition -- Middle Sister!