John Fischer

John Fischer (September 13, 1946 – June 5, 2010) was an American mountaineer, climbing guide and route pioneer, and was one of the 11 founding members of the American Mountain Guides Association in 1979. He was the owner of the Palisade School of Mountaineering in Bishop, California. Fischer was credited with starting the first mountain medicine courses in the United States, and made the first successful traverse of the crest of the Palisades from Southfork Pass in Big Pine Canyon to the summit of Mount Agassiz. Early life John Fischer was born September 13, 1946, in Pontiac, Illinois. When he was in second grade his family moved to San Antonio, Texas. By 1960 the Fischers had moved to California's Santa Clara Valley. He graduated from Pacific High School in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In the summer of 1964, at the age of 17, he hitchhiked to Alaska, where he and three other teens made the first ascent of Mount Carpathian in the Chugach Mountains.