Scott Fischer

Scott Fischer

Scott Eugene Fischer (born December 24, 1955 , † May 11, 1996 on Mount Everest ) was an American extreme mountaineer and entrepreneur and the first American to climb the 8,516 m high Lhotse , the fourth highest mountain in the world.

Mountain guide

With his company "Mountain Madness" he entered the scene of paid mountain guides for extreme tours in 1994 , after having previously gained a reputation in the mountaineering scene through daring tours in high mountains and ascents under extreme conditions.

With his company, he competed with the established New Zealand mountain guide entrepreneur Rob Hall , who was personally friends with him. On his first expedition, he initiated an environmental protection program that collected more than 2500 kilograms of garbage from the high altitudes of Mount Everest and brought it down to the valley. A garbage dump made of torn tents and empty oxygen bottles had piled up, especially on the south saddle at an altitude of almost 8,000 meters .

1996 disaster

Before the 1996 expedition , Scott Fischer once stood on the summit of Everest. In the pre-monsoon phase of 1996, eleven expeditions besieged the south side of Mount Everest , the two largest among them the expeditions of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. Until the way to the south saddle was secured, there were no significant incidents. With a small crew of customers and Sherpas , a total of 21 people set off from the south saddle to "attack the summit" on the night of May 9-10, 1996, among them Scott Fischer and the Russian mountain guide Anatoly Nikolajewitsch Bukrejew, whom he hired specially for this company . After leaving at midnight, the first climbers reached the summit of Mount Everest at around 1:10 p.m. The two teams had previously failed to agree which Sherpas should secure the last ascent over the so-called Hillary Step , a twelve-meter-high steep step in the final summit ridge, with fixed ropes , so that unexpectedly considerable forces were required to defuse this last obstacle on the south ascent .

The normally extremely important agreed final turnaround time of 1 p.m. or 2 p.m., be it at the summit or before the summit, in order to safely reach the last high camp on the way back, had long passed when Scott Fischer and one of his customers were among the last Summit climbers on May 10th. At that time, a snowstorm was raging just below the summit with wind speeds of more than 120 km / h, which weakened the returnees, cooled them down and pushed them to the limit of their strength. Half way back at a height of about 8,400 m at the balcony , Scott Fischer's strength failed. His entire team had been relegated, with the exception of the boss. Some fishing team members and mountaineers from other expeditions spent an extreme night away from the camp on the south saddle, because of the snow storm without a way to find the camp. However, all members of Fischer's expedition were rescued by Neal Beidleman and Anatoly Bukreev on the night of May 11th.

Fischer was found alive by Sherpas on the afternoon of the following day, after 24 hours under extreme cold conditions. He was accompanied by a participant from another expedition who could be saved. However, Fischer was too weak and, due to frostbite, was unable to walk or be rescued in any other way. He died that same day.

Scott Fischer was married to Jean Price, a professional pilot.

Everest bidders have to pass his corpse on the south route. It is located at a height of approx. 8,300 m below the so-called balcony. The remains were to be recovered in May 2010, but his family refused to give their consent beforehand.

See also

• Disaster on Mount Everest (1996)
• Everest

Web links

• https://mountainmadness.com/about/people/scott-fischer
• https://web.archive.org/web/20150924004319/http://www.everestnews2004.com/climbers/scottfisher1996.htm