| Frédéric & Dorly Marmillod | ||
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| by Pieter Crow | ||
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| I never met Frédy and Dorly Marmillod, but I have been deeply touched by their lives. In 1978 I was researching the history of mountain climbing in South America, and I wrote Frédy at his home in Switzerland to request information and photographs. He graciously provided many photos, a number of which appear on this website. In his letter he wrote, "Ma femme et moi, nous voyageons toujours incorrigiblement entre des sommets." (My wife and I travel forever incorrigibly among the peaks). Several weeks later he and Dorly died while climbing in the Alps. When I learned of their deaths I knew I would write a memorial, but I didn't anticipate it would take twenty years to see the light of day! I completed the research for the biography in the early 1980s, and this included a surprise encounter with Mariette Marmillod in San Francisco. She spent many hours telling me about her parents and about growing up in South America. I
never published the biography because of the expense, but years
later I realized the internet was the perfect, low-cost way to present
it. I pulled the research out of a dusty box in the garage, and
this website is the result. A quarter century after their death,
I offer this portrait of a couple "toujours entre des sommets"
-- forever among the peaks. Acknowledgments I am grateful to the Marmillod's relatives, friends, and climbing partners who supplied information and reminiscences: Mariette, Françoise, Janine, and Christiane Marmillod; Dr. Alain Audibert, Dr. Daniel Bach, Konrad Brunner, Greti and Hans Buchhofer-Eisenhut, Louis Dépasse, Semiramis Finó, Marguerite Forster, Fernando Grajales, Beatrix Imobersteg de Figi Lutz, Irma Kramer, Erwin Kraus, Ricco Labhardt, Mrs. Bernard Lauterburg; Blaise de Perrot, Carlos Píderit, Rudi Schmid, Fritz Sigrist, and Gerardo Watzl. The following people and institutions were helpful in a variety of ways: Alpine Club Library, American Alpine Club Library, Humberto Barrera, Jim Billip, Ettore Bionaz, Myles Cahoon, Rose Marie Carruth, Adams Carter, Nick Clinch, Evelio Echevarría, Pat Fletcher, Jorge Ibarra, Mario Mingardi, Terris Moore, Leigh Ortenburger, John F. Ricker, Sandoz Ltd., Swiss Alpine Club, Ephraim Schaefli, Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, and Bernice and Pieter Wesseling. Address of the author
About the author I grew up in
Groton, Massachusets (USA) with a love for the outdoors, especially
hiking and mountain climbing. As a young man I participated in expeditions
to the Andes of Colombia and Venezuela, where I ascended several
peaks climbed earlier by the Marmillods. Later I worked as an instructor
at the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Wyoming. An
interest in history led me to investigate pioneer mountaineeing
in the Andes, research that remains mostly unpublished. Since 1992
I am a computer systems analyst at Central Wyoming College in Riverton.
This is my second website, the first being the
Mars Hill Forum which has a focus on Christian apologetics. |
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Web site created 13 January 2004. Last update 30 October 2007. |