John Roskelley (The Spokesman-Review)

CLIMBING -- Spokane alpinist John Roskelley, 65 -- one of the world's premier mountaineers in the 60s, 70s and 80s -- will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Piolet d’Or in Chamonix, France, in late March 2014. The honor is given to those “whose spirit inspired subsequent generations.”

Roskelley is the first American and sixth recipient of the Golden Ice Axe. He built his climbing reputation with first ascents in the Canadian Rockies before heading farther afield to achieve first ascents and notable ascents of 7,000 and 8,000 meter peaks in Nepal, India and Pakistan.

He's also an author and former Spokane County commissioner. He was named to the Northwest Sports Hall of Fame in 2007. He got his start as a climber as a teenager in the Spokane Mountaineers club.

Roskelley is best known for climbs such as Dhaulagiri, Nanda Devi, Trango Tower, Gaurishankar, K2, Uli Biaho, Cholatse and Tawache, all without supplemental oxygen.

His character is depicted in the movie Storm and Sorrow in the High Pamirs, a tragic 1974 international climb in which he narrowly escaped death in an avalanche that killed companions.

Also in 1974, on an impulse, he joined Spokane climber Chris Kopczynski to become the first Americans to climb the Eiger.

In 2003 and the twilight of his major climbing accomplishments, Roskelley scaled Mount Everest with his son, Jess, 20, who was the youngest American to summit the world's highest peak at the time.

Perhaps his most remarkable climb was in 1980, when Roskelley joined three other Spokane climbers -- Kopczynski, Jim States and Kim Momb for a four-man alpine ascent of Makalu, the world's third highest peak. Roskelley was the only member of the group to summit as he became the first American to reach the goal.

The technical difficulties of the route "were of a level never before attained in Himalayan climbing," Roskelley wrote in the American Alpine Journal.

Roskelley told Rock and Ice magazine that the lifetime achievement award is “a surprise to me, given the hundreds of exceptional climbers throughout the world. I will be accepting it on behalf of all of my teammates through the years who made this possible. After all, I couldn’t have reached the summits of so many classics without them.”