In 1984, Fischer and two friends, Wes Krause and Michael Allison, founded Mountain Madness, an adventure travel service. He guided clients for climbing major mountain peaks around the world. 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 the advice of the doctor, 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 and then resumed the climb using only his left arm. On their first summit bid, the climbers abandoned their attempt at Camp III to rescue Aleskei Nikiforov, Thor Keiser and Chantal Mauduit. Fischer and Ed Viesturs reached the summit on their second attempt without supplemental oxygen along with Charley Mace. During descent, they met climbers Rob Hall and Gary Ball who were suffering with 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.