Fischer and Wally Berg were the first Americans to summit Lhotse (27,940 feet / 8516 m), the world's fourth highest peak.

[3] After watching a TV documentary in 1970 in his home in the Basking Ridge section of Bernards Township, New Jersey, about the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) with his father, he headed to the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming for the summer.

[3] In 1984, Fischer and Wes Krause became the second-ever team to scale the Breach Icicle on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa after Reinhold Messner and Konrad Renzler in 1978.

[7] A few months later they came to Nepal for the autumn climbing season and tried to reach the Annapurna Fang just because of its cheap permit and total cost.

In the summer of 1986, Fischer, Krause, and Robert Birkby went to Soviet Union and reached Elbrus (Caucasus Mountains).

That same year Fischer and Krause organised another group to reach the highest soviet mountain Communism Peak (Pamir).

[3] In the autumn of 1987, Fischer and Krause organised trip to China, trying to reach Mount Everest from Tibet via the Northern Wall.

Fischer, Krause, Stacy Allison, and Samuel Belk had spent four nights in Camp IV waiting for weather but were forced to go down because of strong wind and snowfalls.

[3] In 1992, during the climb on K2 as a part of a Russian-American expedition, Fischer fell into a crevasse and tore the rotator cuff of his right shoulder.

Against his doctor's advice, Fischer spent two weeks trying to recover and asked climbing partner Ed Viesturs to tape his shoulder and tether it to his waist so it would not continue to dislocate.

On their first summit bid, the climbers abandoned their attempt at Camp III to rescue Aleskei Nikiforov, Thor Keiser, and Chantal Mauduit.

[10] During their descent, they met climbers Rob Hall and Gary Ball, who were suffering from altitude sickness at Camp II.

Hall's health improved along the descent, but Ball required subsequent help from Fischer and the other climbers to reach the base of the mountain.

[11][12] Through Mountain Madness, Fischer guided the 1993 Climb for the Cure on Denali (20,320 feet) in Alaska which eight students at Princeton University organized.

[18] In January 1996, Fischer and Mountain Madness guided a fundraising ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro (19,341 feet / 5,895 m) in Africa.

After the storm subsided, on May 11, two Sherpas reached Fischer and "Makalu" Gau Ming-Ho, leader of a Taiwanese expedition.