Mountain Madness interests. While leading Mountain Madness, Fischer became renowned for his ascents of the world's highest mountains made without the use of supplemental oxygen. Fischer and Wally Berg were the first Americans to summit Lhotse, the world's fourth highest mountain (27,940 feet / 8516 m), located next to Mount Everest. He and Ed Viesturs were the first Americans to summit K2, (28,251 feet / 8611m) in the Karakoram of Pakistan without supplemental oxygen. During his stewardship of Mountain Madness, Fischer led social and environmental initiatives to help people in the countries in which Mountain Madness traveled. As the leaders of the
Three Cups of Tea cup of tea, you become family..." In April 2011, critiques and challenges of the book and Mortenson surfaced. Author Jon Krakauer alleged that a number of Mortenson's claims in the book are fictitious and accused him of mismanaging CAI funds. In 1993, mountaineer Greg Mortenson attempted to climb K2, the world's second highest mountain, located in the Karakoram range of Gilgit-Baltistan, as a way of honoring the memory of his deceased sister, Christa. As a memorial, he had planned to lay her amber necklace on the summit of K2. After more than 70 days on the mountain, Mortenson and three