Hans Fuhrer

Hans Fuhrer (1888-1958) was a mountain guide born near Innertkirchen in Switzerland. In addition to multiple ascent of the mountain by the regular routes, in 1920 he and his brother guided on what were to be the first new routes pioneered up Rainier for over fifteen years. One of those, with Roger W. Toll in late June 1920, was at the time believed to be the first ascent of the Kautz Glacier route. above the glacier the route followed a snow couloir which is now known as the Fuhrer Finger in recognition of the Fuhrer brothers.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) had employed European mountain guides in order to promote use of the railway for tourism and climbing in the Rocky Mountains. Those guides had included Peter Kaufmann and his two half-brothers Christian and Hans, and the Feuz family. In 1925 the Canadian National Railway (CNR) adopted a similar strategy and in 1926 Hans Fuhrer began working in Jasper National Park for the CNR. He was later joined by Heinrich. (In 1925, the guide for a Japanese party who made the first ascent of Mount Alberta was Heinrich Fuhrer, it has been written that "Heinrich Fuhrer, the guide who led the first ascent of Mount Alberta, appears to have come to Canada specifically for this climb.) He is not to be confused with another Heinrich Fuhrer, the brother of Hans Fuhrer, who guided in the Jasper area only a few years later". and they made first ascents of several lesser peaks together.

Amongst Fuhrer's other notable first ascents after he left the CNR were Mount Steele, , in the Saint Elias Range, the fifth-highest mountain in Canada, Sixty years later it was written that "During the 1920s and '30s three climbs were made in the Canadian Rockies that clearly stand out as being ahead of their time", where he died in 1958. Forty years after his death it was written that Fuhrer was "one of the greatest mountain guides of the era."