Remembering a mountain guide

Just 50 years ago, on Friday, August 11, 1972, as I was teaching skiing in Australia for a second season, I received a telegram from France advising me of Dominique Mollaret’s death. 

I will always remember that on this day, a mix of rain and snow was falling on a usually foggy day at Mt. Buller. There, it was already Saturday, the day after. Still, I was stunned by the news after all we had gone through with Dominique, our short-lived Avoriaz ski school director… 

Dominique, then twenty-seven years old, originally from Grenoble but living in my hometown of Morzine, France, died while as he was soloing Mont Blanc via l’Aiguille Noire de Peuterey (aka the Super Integral de Peuterey, or Frêney trilogy). 

While no one knows for sure the cause of his death (he could have been hit by a falling rock, exhausted or victim of equipment dysfunction), while repelling the Aiguille, some believe that his abseil got stuck and he reportedly died of exhaustion trying to retrieve it. 

The so-called Super Integrale de Peutèrey, would finally premiered in 1982 by the Italian mountaineer Renato Casarotto. This tragic accident brought Dominique’s career as a guide to a brutal stop.