When Scott Fischer was a young teen, he traveled to Wyoming to the National Outdoor Leadership School There, he quickly discovered his passion for climbing. At 18, he returned to the school when he was 18, joined their faculty as an instructor and met and fell in love with his wife, Jean Price. They later married, settled in Seattle, and had two children..
In 1978, Fischer met fellow climber, Stacy Allison, climbing in Utah's Zion National Park. Nine years later, Fischer led a team, including Allison, up Mount Everest. Bad weather made it impossible for them to summit that year, but Allison returned the following year and became the first American woman to reach the top of Mt. Everest.
In 1984, Scott founded his own climbing business called Mountain Madness. At $50,000 per person, Fischer wanted to guarantee a successful summit each and every time. While he had an early established reputation as a risk taker, later, after settling down with his family, Fischer told a Seattle journalist that he had become more conservative in his climbing.
In 1994, Scott Fischer led an environmental expedition to Everest without supplemental oxygen. His group, the Sagarmatha Environmental Expedition, removed 5,000 pounds of trash from the mountain and was praised by environmental groups, thus gaining fame for Fischer and Mountain Madness.
In January 1996, Scott led an benefit expedition to Kilimanjaro, raising a half a million dollars for the charity CARE. Fischer was quickly becoming famous outside of the mountaineering circles.
In the spring of 1996, Scott leading his own commercial Everest expedition sponsored by Starbucks, Inc. Tragedy struck the mountain that season in the form of a killer blizzard. Reports indicate Fischer and his team summitted Everest, but on the way down the mountain Fischer was having trouble. It is likely Fischer developed cerebral edema, or even pulmonary edema Both conditions can be fatal if not treated right away. Fischer collapsed just below 27,600 feet on the south side of the mountain. Because of the severe storm, no one was able to reach him for many hours. His body was found the following day half-buried in the snow. Jon Krakauer, on assignment for Outdoor magazine and travelling with Rob Hall's team, would later describe the tragedy in his book, Into Thin Air.
