Fritz Steuri (skier, 1879)

First to climb the Eiger Mittellegigrat 10th September 1921 (from left): Samuel Brawand, Yuko Maki, Fritz Steuri, Fritz Amatter

Fritz Steuri (born July 25, 1879 in Grindelwald , † September 5, 1950 ibid) was a Swiss mountain guide and Nordic and Alpine skier. He was three times Swiss champion in the endurance run and was involved in the first ascent of the Eiger Middle Gigrat in 1921 .

biography

Fritz Steuri came into contact with skiing in the early 1890s when he observed the Englishman Gerald Fox skiing in Grindelwald. In 1898 he bought his first pair of skis from the Grindelwald factory. Even before the turn of the century there were the first ski races in Grindelwald, at which Fritz Steuri, who already did regular ski training, competed with other locals. In his job as a postman , which he practiced from 1899 until he became a mountain guide, the skis rendered him valuable services. In 1902 he was one of the founding members of the Grindelwald Ski Club .

Fritz Steuri developed into one of the best skiers in the early days of Swiss ski racing. He was the best athlete at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in endurance running or alpine endurance running, as cross-country skiing was called back then . Steuri won the fast run ( downhill run ) in the second race of the Grindelwald Ski Club in January 1903 and was second in both the jump and endurance run. In January 1904, he won the third club race again at high speed. In February 1903 Steuri won the "International Championship in Alpine Endurance Run" organized by the Bern Ski Club in Adelboden , in which he also emerged victorious in 1904 (again in Adelboden) and 1905 (in Zweisimmen ). From 1904 to 1906 he won the great endurance run of the Grindelwald ski races around the hiking cup of Grindelwald three times in a row. After the founding of the Swiss Ski Association on November 20, 1904, on January 21 and 22, 1905 in Glarus, the first Swiss ski championships ("First Great Ski Race in Switzerland") took place, Fritz Steuri became Swiss champion in endurance runs. As the fastest of the 32 participants, he mastered the 20-kilometer route over the Pragel Pass with an ascent of 560 meters and a descent of 1160 meters in a time of 1 hour, 54 minutes and 7 seconds. The best time in the previous year's «Pragelauf» was almost 38 minutes slower. In 1906 in Zweisimmen and 1907 in Davos he was again Swiss champion in the endurance run, whereupon the “ski king” Fritz Steuri was asked not to take part in these races in order to give other runners a chance to win.

From this time on, Steuri also worked as a ski instructor and taught, among others, Hermann and Othmar Gurtner and Walter Amstutz in alpine skiing technique and the “classic” turns Telemark, Christiania and Stemmbogen. In 1926, Steuri was President of the Grindelwald Ski Club, and he was still running ski courses in the 1930s.

In addition to skiing, Fritz Steuri was also a well-known mountain guide . He acquired his license to guide in 1905 and had previously climbed numerous peaks such as the Jungfrau , Eiger , Finsteraarhorn and Wetterhorn . Steuri worked as a mountain guide for 45 years, mainly around Grindelwald and in the Valais and Graubünden Alps . On September 10, 1921 he succeeded with the Japanese Maki Yūkō and the other guides Fritz Amatter and Samuel Brawand, the first ascent of the Eiger Mittellegigrats in the ascent. The ridge was first climbed in the descent in 1885. Shortly before, he had climbed the Dufourspitze , the Matterhorn and the Aletschhorn with Maki and Brawand . Steuri then led numerous Japanese to Swiss Alpine peaks, including Prince Chichibu Yasuhito , with whom he and other mountain guides climbed the Wetterhorn, Finsteraarhorn, Schreckhorn , Matterhorn, the peaks of Monte Rosa and other mountains in September 1926 . On May 26, 1926, Steuri, Chichibu, Walter Amstutz, Arnold Lunn and two others climbed the Grindelwald Grünhorn for the first time on skis. Another well-known client of Steuris was the writer Konrad Falke , whom he had already guided through the Jungfrau region in September 1907. This resulted in Falke's work Im Banne der Jungfrau , published in 1909 . From about 1930 Steuri specialized as a virgin leader. He worked as one of the “Jochführer”, those mountain guides who stayed at the Jungfraujoch after the construction of the Jungfrau Railway and from there took tourists to the surrounding peaks, and so he climbed the Jungfrau 1,139 times in his life - sometimes twice in one day . For some time Steuri was the innkeeper of the Konkordia hut and chairman of the Grindelwald mountain rescue service .

Fritz Steuri had four sons, three of whom were also well-known mountain guides: Fritz junior (1908–1953), Hermann (1909–2001), Hans (1911–1975) and Rudolf (1913–1987). Fritz junior and Hermann also achieved numerous successes in ski racing, Rudolf was initially also a ski instructor, but then worked in regional politics.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rudolf Rubi : From mountain farming village to tourist resort: hospitality, alpinism. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume II). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1986, pp. 201-202.
2. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, p. 143.
3. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, pp. 83, 149.
4. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, p. 155.
5. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, p. 157.
6. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, p. 160.
7. ^ ^{A b} Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, pp. 158-159.
8. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, pp. 159-160, 183.
9. ↑ Max D. Amstutz: The beginnings of alpine ski racing. AS Verlag, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-909111-79-4 , p. 45.
10. ↑ Christine Kopp: "We were originally mountaineers and ski mountaineers ..." An approach to the alpinism pioneers in the history of the SAS. In: The mountain hare. 37th yearbook of the Swiss Academic Ski Club SAS. 2002-2007. Pp. 188-189.
11. ↑ Hermann Gurtner : Review. In: The mountain hare. Yearbook of the Swiss Academic Ski Club. No. 1, 1924-27, p. 9.
12. ↑ Hermann Gurtner : Dear friends, young people are beautiful. In: The mountain hare. Yearbook of the Swiss Academic Ski Club. Volume 4, No. 16, 1944, pp. 228-229.
13. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, p. 217.
14. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, p. 223.
15. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, p. 219.
16. ↑ ^{a b} Rudolf Rubi : From mountain farming village to tourist resort: hospitality, alpinism. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume II). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1986, p. 201.
17. ↑ ^{a b c d} Rudolf Rubi : From mountain farming village to tourist resort: hospitality, alpinism. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume II). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1986, p. 202.
18. ↑ Samuel Brawand : Memories of Yuko Maki. P. 5 (PDF file, 74 kB).
19. ^ Rudolf Rubi : From mountain farming village to tourist resort: hospitality, alpinism. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume II). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1986, p. 171.
20. ^ Samuel Brawand : Grindelwald mountain guide. Heimatvereinigung Grindelwald, Grindelwald 1973, pp. 77, 80.
21. ↑ Max Senger: How Switzerland became a ski country. MS Metz, Zurich 1941, p. 171.
22. ^ Rudolf Rubi : The summer and winter health resort: roads and railways, winter sports. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume III). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1987, pp. 51-52.
23. ^ Rudolf Rubi : From mountain farming village to tourist resort: hospitality, alpinism. (= In the valley of Grindelwald . Volume II). Verlag Sutter Druck, Grindelwald 1986, p. 207.