Perhaps this dearth of rock prompted the Marmillods to settle in a three-story house built of stone. They practiced climbing the outside walls and rappelling out of the attic. Once when Dorly and the family were locked out, she nimbly climbed to the third floor and let herself in.

At three to four year intervals the Marmillods returned to Switzerland during the Argentine summer (Swiss winter). During the summers spent in Argentina they climbed in the Andes for several weeks. This meant reacclimatizing to altitude from sea level every year. To keep fit, Dorly and Frédy swam and played tennis year round, and they gained a fair proficiency in these sports. When they had a few days free, they drove down to the Sierra de la Ventana for rock climbing. Occasionally they went to the outskirts of the capital and climbed a large chimney that was part of an abandoned factory. The site was popular among members of the local climbers club, the Centro Andino Buenos Aires.

The Marmillods were now in their mid to late thirties but the years had not diminished their climbing enthusiasm. The first evidence came with their expedition to Aconcagua in February 1948.

"Ten years after our first climb in the Andes, my wife and I finally succumbed to the attraction of the 'monarch'. We went to try out luck on Aconcagua accompanied by our friends Konrad Brunner and Otto Pfenniger.

"Chaos reigned at Plaza de Mulas (4250 m), the standard base camp beneath the colossus. A Mexican expedition with its Argentine escort had occupied the site for several days. While most of the group attacked the summit, others stayed behind in camp fiddling with a radio transmitter. The next day and throughout the entire night, the andinistas wandered down, alone or in small groups, much the worse for the cold and winds higher up. Six out of the fourteen participants had reached the summit, and two had serious frostbite. When the batteries in the radio ran down, the voice of the speaker was replaced by the racket of the recharging generator. To orient the stragglers, the soldiers fired flares and set off explosive charges… Twenty-four hours later the greater part of the expedition had returned to Puente del Inca, and tranquility reigned once again upon the moraines and nearby glacier. After this tragicomic episode, so typically 'Aconcaguaesque', we drew up our own plans." [F. Marmillod, Les Alpes, 1952, p. 83]

The first plan was to climb Cerro Cuerno (5462 m). Previously the peak had been climbed by the ridge linking it with Aconcagua. The Marmillods and friends established a new, direct line on the Upper Horcones Glacier, laboriously forcing a path through interminable fields of nieves penitents before reaching the rock, and soon, the summit (first ascent by a woman). Night was near and an unplanned, teeth-chattering bivouac unavoidable.

"Our friend Brunner, a new arrival in America, found this baptism in the Cordillera a bit harsh, and we had to admit that the training climb had exceeded our expectations." [Ibid, p. 85]

After a good rest at Plaza de Mulas, the group climbed to the summit of Aconcagua (6960 m) in two days. Altitude took its tool as it does on all who make the ascent.

Frédy: "My body felt like lead. Each step brings you to the edge of asphyxiation and requires a compensatory pause. If you lose your balance, the effort made to regain it forces you to halt a few minutes while the storm that is your breathing calms down. When we reached the summit ridge, we could not have said how many hours had elapsed since the start of the final couloir. Three, according to our watches. On the summit we squeezed hands. I wanted to say something but was unable to make a sound. More than anything I wanted to shout in admiration for my wife, who had accomplished the ascent with apparent ease and who was there, smiling, on this summit where one feels removed from the earth and mankind." [Ibid, p. 85]

Two women had preceded Dorly to the top of Aconcagua, Adriana Bance Link in 1940 and 1944, and Maria Canals in 1947. Both died on the mountain, and Dorly and her companions came close to a similar fate.

Clouds clamped down on the summit and it began to snow, quickly covering the return path. The group hurried to descend but soon lost the route. They went down as far as daylight would allow, stumbling upon the remains of an old camp beneath an overhanging rock. Here they found a blanket and the tattered remains of a tent. These miraculous discoveries and the cessation of the snowstorm probably saved their lives. When daylight returned, they found themselves not more than a twenty-minute walk from their camp at the Plantamura Hut (later the site of the Berlin Huts).

"Aconcagua is a horrible pile of scree, the ascent is disheartening, endless, devoid of difficulty and interest… and yet we experienced something magnificent which will always stand out in our memories like a brilliant light from the depths of our souls." [Ibid p. 86]

Back in Buenos Aires, a correspondent for Swiss Radio courted Dorly for an interview. True to her aversion for publicity she refused. The man did not give up easily; after all, Dorly was the only woman alive who had climbed the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere. After months of begging the correspondent wore down Dorly's resistance, and she granted him a five-minute interview. (The recording has survived; a transcript is available elsewhere on this website.)

Frédy had by now gained a reputation as the best Swiss climber in the Andes. When the Academic Alpine Club of Zürich (AACZ) organized an expedition to the Cordillera Blanca in the summer of 1948, he was invited to join. Normally expeditions of this sort were organized and financed for members only. Frédy, who was not a member, felt honored by the invitation and accepted with pleasure.

He arrived in Peru at the beginning of June to meet the other members of the expedition: Dr. Rüdi Schmid, Fritz Sigrist, Ali Szepessy, and leader Bernard Lauterberg (later to lead the first Swiss expedition to Dhaulagiri, seventh highest mountain on earth).

Sigrist recalls the impression Frédy made: "We four from the AACZ had known each other for years and had made many climbs together. We met Fred for the first time upon our arrival in Lima, and in a very short time he became a member of our team, so that he was no longer considered an outsider. A man with a different character would not have accomplished this so easily. He was an excellent mountain companion, always ready to help and to pitch in whenever there was something that had to be done. One could depend upon him in any kind of situation." [Letter from Fritz Sigrist to the author, Aug. 10, 1980]

Over a two month period, the expedition made several fine first ascents, including Nevados Carhuas (5110 meters), Cashan (5723), and Pucaranra (6156), accomplished by all members except Szepessy. In mid-July the expedition wound its way up the Quebrada Alpamayo. At last Frédy would have another chance to climb Nevado Santa Cruz.

From their high camp the group was divided on how to attack Santa Cruz. Some saw promise in the rock of the North Ridge, while others preferred the snows of the steep Northeast Face. Accordingly, the group split into two parties in order to attempt the peak simultaneously by different routes.

With a last call to the others, Frédy Marmillod and Ali Szepessy crossed the bergschrund beneath the Northeast Face of Nevado Santa Cruz. Above lay a steep, rock-ribbed snow slope some four-hundred meters high. In the shadows the firn was sufficiently hard to require step cutting, while in the sunlight the snow had softened to the consistency of white paste. Piton placements were almost nonexistent, ice-axe belays no more than psychological. Roped but unprotected, the two climbers ascended for ten hours "like flies on a window pane following the folds of a curtain." [Sieg ueber den Nevado Santo Cruz] Ali, on his first serious high-altitude ascent, wanted to turn back when his hands get wet and cold, but Frédy encouraged him to continue.

Upon arrival at the upper North Ridge, Frédy and Ali found no trace of the others. (Lauterberg, Schmid and Sigrist had rappalled off the North Face to avoid a bivouac.) Continuing along the ridge, they made their way around crevasses and cornices in thick clouds until night surprised them at the foot of the terminal cupola. Despite the lack of sleeping bags they slept tolerably well, wrapped inside their Zdarsky bivouac sack and wedged into a tiny hold dug into the side of a crevasse. The fit was so tight that turning over required the efforts of both men in unison. The next morning they reached the top (6241 meters) after two easy rope lengths. The view could not have been better: totally cloudless.

Frédy was the driving force on the climb. Ali wanted to turn back when his hands got cold and wet, but Frédy encouraged him to continue. Frédy led the route, cooked for his exhausted companion at the bivouac, and re-climbed the rappel rope to free a snag during the descent. He was not going to lose the summit this time! After two previous failures on the East Ridge it was a well-earned achievement, as well as the high point of the expedition. Frédy regarded the climb as "one of the beautiful gems of my alpine career." [Letter from Frederic Marmillod to John F. Ricker]

Nevado Santa Cruz was seldom the goal of subsequent expeditions. As late as 1975 only one additional ascent had been recorded, in part because of the exposed nature of its flanks. More importantly, however, the nearby peak of Alpamayo overshadowed the higher summits around it.

Alpaymayo (5947 meters), unattempted up to that time, cast a spell on the Swiss expedition, its symmetrical ice pyramid enchanting them like a siren. The expedition established a high camp beneath the peak, having crossed a dangerous labyrinth of seracs. Frédy and Ali resigned from the summit attempt in order to guide the Peruvian porters back to safe ground. Through binoculars Frédy followed the slow progress of Latuerberg, Schmid and Sigrist as they ascended the cornice-festooned North Ridge of Alpamayo. Suddenly a cornice snapped under their weight, setting off an avalanche. All three climbers plummetted down the Northwest Face, chased by blocks of ice and a mass of new snow before coming to rest on a terrace far below. Miraculously, the climbers survived. Shaken, bruised and injured, the climbers dug themselves out and traveled back to camp under their own power.

Schmid's lip, punctured by his ice axe, would soon heal, but Sigrist had dislocated his shoulder. Schmid could not reduce it and could only offer morphine. The expedition immediately descended to the Santa Valley. Sigrist and Frédy took the next bus to Lima, Sigrist to have his shoulder treated, Frédy to return to Buenos Aires because his vacation time had run out.

It had been a wonderful trip for Frédy with only one missing ingredient: Dorly. She had stayed behind in Buenos Aires, making this a rare occasion when the Marmillods did not climb together. Yet the couple would return to the Cordillera Blanca. In September 1949, they attempted Aguja Nevado, reaching an altitude 200 meters short of the summit.

With the arrival of Christiane in December 1948 the Marmillod family was complete with four daughters. The climbs of the next few years were exciting ones.

In February 1950 came the first ascent of the heavily glaciated Alto de los Arrieros (5000 meters). Except for nearby Volcán Sosneado, this is the southernmost five-thousand meter peak in the Andes. Companions on the climber were Otto and Lorenzo Pfenniger, father and son. Pfenniger senior was a famous andinista of Swiss extraction who made numerous first ascents, primarily on the Chilean side of the Cordillera.

In March 1951, Konrad Brunner and Marta Soini joined the Marmillods for an expedition to Tupungato (6550 meters), the highest Andean summit south of Aconcagua. They spent a full week approaching the massif with mules and on foot, reaching a foresummit a few meters below the highest point. Thick clouds prevented them finding the true summit. An attempt was also made on Sierra Bella (5230 meters), but the exertions of Tupungato had drained the party's energy. Frédy called the climb a "long calvary", and no wonder. After turning back at 5000 meters, the group took a short cut back to the tents and promptly lost its way in an ocean of nieves penitentes. A miserable bivouac followed.

Every three or four years, Sandoz offered its Swiss employees two months off to visit the homeland. The Marmillods arranged these vacations to coincide with the European winter. The family rented a chalet in the Alps and went skiing. At night friends arrived to dine on fondue or something equally appetizing – Frédy had a reputation for appreciating fine food and drink – and the parties and good times might last until dawn. Elvira became adept at cooking for large groups of people and she learned to speak French during these stays in Europe.

The Marmillods skied quieter, less accessible corners of the Alps. Cross-country skiing in tracks? Too boring; they would save it for old age. Ski mountaineering with skins and lock-down cable bindings brought them great joy. They shunned ski lifts and were even known to ski uphill beneath a liftline because they would rather exercise than wait in line! Later in life they relaxed a bit and allowed themselves the luxury of a ski lift because it permitted them to go further.

In 1952 the Marmillods prepared to tackle the Monarch once again. Up until then only two routes had been climbed on Aconcagua: the normal route from the northwest and the "Polish" route up the Northeast Glacier. Riding through the Horcones Valley in 1948, Frédy and Dorly had admired the South Ridge, silhouetted sharply against the blue sky, and they began toying with the idea of a new route. They studied the ridge from various summits and vantage points to the west, and in February 1952, they arrived with Michel Ruedin, a fellow Swiss, to attempt it. Bad weather intervened and they had to be satisfied with an ascent of the normal route, covered in deep snow.

Meanwhile, Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, two members of a French expedition, climbed Fitzroy, a very challenging peak in Patagonia. When the French expedition returned to Buenos Aires it was fêted continuously for three weeks, and the Marmillods held a celebration party at their home. The pièce de résistance was a grand cake in the shape of Fitzroy. Lionel Terray and Franciso Ibañez shared the honor of making the first cut.

The reputation of Aconcagua's South Face had reached France, and the expedition planned a visit to look the mountain over. Frédy was invited to join and he agreed instantly. The group arrived in March 1952 and found the South Ridge an attractive objective from which to obtain good views of the South Face. The climbers reconnoitered the lower slopes of the Southwest Face, searching for the system of couloirs that Frédy had observed and photographed from peaks across the valley. Close at hand, however, the key couloir was swallowed up by the immensity and complexity of the West Face. It has been said that this flank of Aconcagua holds more interest for the geologist than for the mountaineer. The group gave up and returned to Plaza de Mulas to make an attempt by the normal route.

Frédy looked forward eagerly to the ascent with Lionel Terray, a renowned world-class alpinist, but fate decided otherwise. Frédy suddently came down with an agonizing toothache and was obliged to return hastily to Buenos Aires for dental work It was a bitter disappointment that he regretted for years.

As it turned out, most of the French climbers were stricken with altitude sickness and also forfeited the ascent. The only two to reach the summit were Terray and Lieutenant Francisco Ibañez.

Ibañez, the Argentine liaison officer with the Fitzroy expedition, was a man of boundless energy, ambition, and charm. An original caballero, a true gentleman, he was well liked by many people and he had climbed Aconcagua four times. Inspired by Maurice Herzog and Annapurna, he was planning the first Argentinian expediition to the Himalaya.

Fernando Grajales, a man of similar character, was chosen to be a member of the Himalayan team. Like Ibañez, he was one of the best Argentinian climbers of the day. Grajales possessed an well –developed sense of humor that endeared him to anyone he met, including the Marmillods. He recalls meeting Frédy and Dorly:

"In 1952, as I was descending to Plaza de Mulas after having made a solo ascent of Aconcagua, I came upon two packs in front of the refugio. I stole a lemon from one of them: it belonged to Federico Marmillod. Thus I came to know him and thus he included me his project of climbing the coveted South Ridge. Marmillod was a very good andinista, a true mountaineering pioneer. He was one of those climbers who opened up routes and always wanted to do new things in the Cordillera. His wife Dorly also distinguished herself on difficult climbs." [quote from newspaper]

The same year, as part of their training for the Himalayan expedition, Grajales and Ibañez made a reconnaissance of the Southeast Ridge of Aconcagua, whose upper part coincides with the Polish Route. They encountered many problems attempting to gain access the ridge and gave up, opting to join the Marmillods the following year on the South Ridge.

The climb commenced from the Horcones Valley in mid-January, 1953. Ibañez had just descended from the summit of Aconcagua, his fifth ascent, while the Marmillods had made the first ascent of Cerro Mirador (5509 m), which they named for its marvelous view of the Monarch's stupendous South Face. Grajales was waiting for them at Plaza de Mulas.

With three mules and a baquiano (muleteer), the climbers traversed the western slopes to a camp which had been sited the year before. At 5500 meters, this was the highest point accessible by mules, but only with great difficulty. An entire day had been spent preparing the route with ice axes, and one of the beasts took a fifty-meter tumble, luckily without serious consequences for itself or its load.

After a day of reconnaissance, the ascent began in earnest on January 20, each climber carrying fifteen kilos. Trusting their lives to sleeping bags, air mattresses, and a four man Zdarsky bivouac sack, they boldly left the tents behind, to be recovered days later by the baquiano.

Between 6000 and 6600 meters, the South Ridge was broken by a series of vertical and impractical towers of congolomerate rock. The key to the route, therefore, was a great couloir just west of the ridge, but access to it was complicated by a band of rock one-hundred meters high that girdled the Southwest Face. Rather than attack the band directly, the foursome traversed for two to three kilometers beneath the band until they found an easy passage through it. They climbed to the base of the first tower and then descended two-hundred meters across talus to the entrance of the couloir, where they placed a bivouac underneath an overhanging rock. The net elevation gain was only two-hundred meters.

Most of the next day was spent in the couloir. After several hundred meters it narrowed to a snow chute where the climbers donned crampons and roped up for the first time. Shortly after they had passed through the narrowestg part, a large block toppled off the wall above and plowed through the constriction, the only rockfall observed during the ascent. The couloir widened into a steep slope, and at 6400 meters the second bivouac was installed.

"During the night the weather deteriorated," wrote Frédy. "Clouds descended on our mountain and showers of snow swirled about in the violent wind. Little by little, snow filtered into our down sleeping bags, soaking everything. I dreamed of an evil genie, hidden high on our route, who was gleefully operating a gigantic snow making machine. In the morning we laboriously extracted ourselves from our frozen shells. Our morale was low, and given the unstable weather, there was no thought of going higher. We had food and fuel for two days. Weather permitting, we would attempt the traverse. If not, we would go down. Fortunately, the weather improved in the afternoon. The setting sun, glowing with auspicious colors, raised our hopes before the harsh hours of the night descended upon us.

"January 23. The friendly roar of the alcohol stove had been in our ears since 2 a.m. We stuffed our packs and at 7:30 started on the last lap. The first two hours were the worst. We had only climbed a little bit when the wind assailed us violently, stabbing us with cold despite thick layers of clothing. Following a secondary ridge on the West Face, we arrived at its junction with the true South Ridge at about 6700 meters. The sky was cloudless and the view extended far into the distance in every direction as if we were looking down from an airplane. We stopped to massage the feet of our companions and continued along the ridge, which we never left. Whereas we had thought this would be an icy knife edge, we were presented with a broad crest where snow alternated with loose rocks. There was only one tricky step, a short rib of unstable rock. Little by little the wind died out, so much so that this day would be the most beautiful during the three weeks we spent in the Cordillera. We ascended at a serene pace, enjoying immensely our walk in the sky. From Mercedario to Tupungato, the glorious succession of peaks and glaciers of the Central Cordillera spread out over two-hundred kilometers, the relief enhanced by bands of puffy clouds that hugged the bottoms of the valleys. More than anything, we were entranced by the tremendous South Face, whose precipitous slopes, interrupted by ice balconies, opened up beneath our feet. The rocks that we trundled into the void toward the Lower Horcones Glacier, whose dark carapace sprawled far down into the valley, three-thousand meters below. Already we were planning routes on the South Face and climbing mentally from shelf to shelf.

"At five in the afternoon we gave each other the traditional 'abrazo' [hug] on the South Summit of Aconcagua (6930 m). There, well planted in a cairn, we found the ice axe left six years earlier by Thomas Kopp and Lothar Herold, the first people to have reached this summit, using the route from the north. I exchanged axes, little realizing that a few days later mine would be carried down in turn by a Japanese expedition and offered solemnly to President Perón. Such are the little tricks of fate on the summit of Aconcagua!

"The ridge along which we continued was narrow and required care since it was rather icy. After two or three hundred meters, the ground became easier and we finally removed our crampons and coiled the rope. Shortly before the familiar caneleta of the normal route, we passed the guanaco corpse which had given Kopp – and the readers of his book – such a surprise. Ibañez cut off a hoof as a souvenir. The nearby north summit seemed to greet us like a friend on the other side of the street. We would have liked to answer its call and put the finishing touch on our traverse, but time was short and another night in the open was definitely not part of our plan. At nine o'clock, shortly after nightfall, we slid one after the other into the tiny General Juan Péron shelter. Grajales quickly cleared out the snow that had blown in through the door that was hanging askew on its hinges.

"The next day we descended to Plaza de Mulas after one long rest at the Plantamura Hut and another at the first trickle of water, which we found at the foot of the talus slope. What delicious music running water makes! Our parched throats gulped down great draughts, and then we basked in the sun's caresses … several days in a frozen world gives these sensations an exceptional intensity. But these feelings are soon blunted when biting cold and craving thirst are taken away. All the same, the memory of our beautiful, high-altitude adventure took root in us, ready to shine a light upon the darkest of times."

"The route up the West Face and South Ridge, which we had the satisfaction to open, offers only moderate technical difficulties. The route is nevertheless much more interesting, more alpine, than the customary route from the north, which is really no more than a mule path for nine-tenths of its length. We spent seven days on the mountain, including one for reconnaissance and another sitting out bad weather. Undoubtedly, a well-acclimated team could make the traverse in four or five days given favorable conditions." [ACAB 1954]

The West Face and South Ridge, to date the only new route on Aconcagua made by a team which included a woman, was not repeated until 1979. Fernando Grajales explained why: "I believe it's because the approach to the ridge is complex. Higher up the route is not difficult. But the West Face requires a lot of study because in the lower part there are many couloirs and gullies and it is necessary to choose the right one." [Los Andes]

The Marmillod's two companions went ahead with their Himalayan plans the following year. Under Ibañez' leadership the "President Perón" expedition reached 8000 meters on Dhaulagiri. During the stormy retreat, Ibañez developed frostbitten feet to the point that he could no longer walk. A heroic rescue by all available Andeans and Sherpas could not alter the tragic outcome. Ibañez died in the Kathmandu hospital from his injuries. Argentinian mountaineering was deprived of its most enthusiastic proponent, and the Marmillods lost a close friend.

After their third ascent of Aconcagua, Frédy and Dorly shifted their attention from high-altitude mountaineering to rock climbing and easy glacier tours. They began to bring along their daughters, and climbing became a family affair, except for Christiane who was still too young. Following an initiation to rock climbing at the Sierra de la Ventana, the girls received their first taste of andinismo in the Lake District of southern Chile-Argentina.

Most vacations from the mid to late fifties were spent on Lake Todos los Santos, a convenient base for exploring the Lake District. On the opposite shore stood the sharp peak of Puntiagudo (2494 m), first climbed in 1937, when one of the first ascent party had been killed on the descent. On account of that tragedy and the peak's notoriously rotten rock, Walter Koch (Marta Soini's father) forbade anyone to attempt it. But the Marmillods could not resist the call of this little Matterhorn. From Koch's house at the foot of the mountain, Frédy and Dorly set out accompanied by daughters from both families. Mariette Marmillod recalled that the rock seemed to crumble away as they looked at it. The party did not summit on that occasion, but on a later attempt Frédy and Dorly overcame the difficult summit pyramid and reached the top.

Other ascents of those years included Volcán Lanin (3776 m), a boring three-day climb with an unplanned bivouac on the descent that left the girls rather sore afterward; climbs in the Los Tres Picos massif (2600 m), an impressive range of rock peaks and spires that rise out of surrounding glaciers; and several ascents of Tronador (3554 m), the highest and most beautiful mountain in the vicinity of Bariloche.

Frédy and Dorly missed the higher Andean summits to the north, and in 1956 they returned to Aconcagua with J. Guajardo. Their goal was to climb the Southeast Ridge, but the weather and technical difficulties made this impossible. They succeeded in making the second ascent of Cerro Ameghino (5883 m, first by a woman), a peak northest of Aconcagua.

Cerro López (2076 m), an interesting rock peak near the Bariloche ski area, attracted the Marmillod clan several times. Once when the family was on an easy ridge, a young climber was attempting to solo a steep face nearby. On the summit, Frédy looked around, called out, and listened. There was no sign of the solo climber and no answers to his calls. Later in the day, Frédy found the youth's battered body at the foot of the face.

This incident and other accidents had the effect of increasing Frédy's concern for others. If a person in the refugio seemed inexperienced or poorly equipped, or said he was going to try something that Frédy felt he should not do alone, he would keep an eye out for him. On occasion he changed route or delayed his own plans so that he might be in a better position to assist.

Wenceslao Clerch, an active Bariloche climber, recalls one such occasion: "We arrived at the old refugio on Tronador, exhausted and soaked from bad weather. The hut was full of people who milled about in the corners of the shelter. When we arrived, a man got up, lit the fire and made us tea. He introduced himself as Frédy Marmillod. The next day, we left in hopes of reaching the summit. The weather was not good and we had to turn back. When we got back to the refugio everyone had left except one person, Marmillod. He said that since conditions were bad, he wanted to wait and see if we returned safely from the summit. He bid us goodbye and left." [letter from Semiramis Fino to Mariette Marmillod]