Rudolph Peake, Edward Peake, Ernest Peake, Walter Peake and Christian Peake. Who knows whether the five peaks of Mount Lyell (3504 m) in the Canadian Rocky Mountains were named after five Bernese mountain guides who came there to advance the development of mountaineering?

Among climbers who took up the challenge of getting away from it all, Edward Fuse Jr. (1884–1981) was a particularly notable figure. His father, Edward Fuse Sr., was the head of the Interlaken Mountain Guide and, along with Christian Hasler Sr., was one of the first two Swiss mountain guides hired by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1899 to ensure the safety of tourists . Rocky Mountains to take care of.

Edward Jr., the eldest of eight siblings, grew up in the world of mountains at an early age. At the age of twelve, he conquered the Jungfrau peak and descended with a lifelong passion. In 1903 he traveled to Canada with his father for the first time as a porter and later became a mountain guide himself. His brothers Ernst and Walter (the ancestor of today’s ski racer Beat Fuse), his friends Rudolf Emmer and Christian Hasler Jr. later joined him.

“Edward was an extraordinary man with an amazing passion for climbing,” enthuses Donna Stephen, who learned to climb from him when he was already of retirement age. The California woman who lives in the Rocky Mountains recently wrote a book about the life of this man she considered her grandfather. The book describes the incredible challenge these men faced when the journey from Interlaken to the Rockies took more than two weeks.