Mountaineer Doug Scott, who died at his Lake District home in December, was climbing right up until the last.

In 1975 he was part of the first UK team to summit the notoriously tricky south west face of Everest. Two years later he became even more of a legend in mountaineering circles when he broke both legs at 7,200m while abseiling down the Karakoram peak known as the Ogre and had to crawl back to base camp. It remains one of the great survival stories in world mountaineering to this day.

Yet despite reaching all the highest peaks on all seven continents, it was his final challenge of walking up the stairs at his Caldbeck home earlier this year which he described as “hellish”.

Scott was diagnosed with brain cancer in March but was still determined to raise money for the charity he had founded to help people in the Himalayas. In September, on the 45th anniversary of his Everest climb, he donned the same blue nylon suit he had worn on the world’s highest mountain and started climbing up and down the stairs of home.

He invited others to join him and, to date, the challenge has raised more than £45,000.

Scott favoured climbing Alpine style, without the use of artificial oxygen. Using that technique he made 45 expeditions to the High Mountains of Asia. His climbing was recognised in 1994 when he was made a CBE. A past president of the Alpine Club, he also received the Royal Geographical Society Patron’s Gold Medal in 1999.

Yet it was his love of Nepal and the help he provided for the people there for which he will also be remembered. After studying Buddhism he founded the charity Community Action Nepal in 1994. Friend, and expedition leader of the Everest expedition, Sir Chris Bonington paid tribute to him: “He was a superb climber; a superb mountaineer with very, very good mountain judgement. But it was the way when he was climbing that he looked after the people around him; the way he cared for the Sherpa helpers and the porters who were helping us. This came across right the way through everything that he’s done.

“What’s important is the way you go up that mountain; and Doug’s integrity was absolutely complete. He did it in the purest possible way. And right the way through his life he’s been caring for other people as well.”

Born in Nottingham (his father George was crowned the British amateur heavyweight boxing champion in 1945), Scott was said to have discovered climbing during an Easter Scout camp in 1955 in the Derwent Valley. He went on to become a teacher but later gave up his teaching career to pursue climbing across the globe, including making the first European ascent of El Capitan’s Salathe Wall in Yosemite National Park.

His Nepalese charity released the news of his death on December 7, saying he had died peacefully at his home surrounded by his family. He was 79.

Twice divorced, Scott is survived by his third wife, Trish; three children, Michael, Martha and Rosie, from his first marriage, to Jan; and two sons, Arran and Euan, from his second marriage, to Sharu.