US climbing legend Fred Beckey has died aged 94. Beckey was widely regarded as one of North America's greatest mountaineers, and perhaps the ultimate 'dirtbag', rejecting conventional security for a life devoted to climbing.

Taking up climbing as a teenager in the Cascade Range of America's Pacific Northwest, Beckey soon gained a reputation as a committed exploratory mountaineer, at a time when the potential of the Northwest was only beginning to be tapped.

"I was 13 when I climbed Boulder Peak in the Olympic Mountains by myself" he later recalled, "and I guess you can say that I never stopped climbing after that. For me, the appeal of climbing has many sources: a longing to escape from the artificial civilized order, a need for self-rejuvenation, a desire to restore my sense of proportion. When you are climbing, you experience freedom from constraints."

In 1942, aged just 19, Beckey and his brother Helmy (17) made waves with the second ascent of Mount Waddington, in British Columbia's remote Coast Range. Over a climbing career spanning seven decades, he then went on to establish one of the most prolific first ascent records in the world. He also wrote several classic guides and other books.

Fred Beckey's life is the subject of the new film Dirtbag: The Legend of Fred Beckey, showing at film festivals this year.