| Nicole Catherine Isabelle Niquille | |
| Birth Date: | 13 May 1956 |
| Birth Place: | Fribourg, Switzerland |
| Occupation: | Mountain guide |
| Known For: | First Swiss woman to have obtained the mountain guide certification, first woman to ascend over 8,000m without supplementary oxygen |
| Spouse: | Marco Vuadens (1997-present) |
| Partner: | Erhard Loretan (1975-1986) |
| Honours: | Lifetime Achievement Award from the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation, Honorary Member of the Swiss Mountain Guide Association |
Nicole Catherine Isabelle Niquille (born May 13, 1956) is a Swiss mountain guide, mountaineer and humanitarian. She is the first Swiss woman to become a certified mountain guide and the first woman to reach over 8,000m without supplementary oxygen.[1]
Born in Fribourg, as one of four children, Nicole Niquille grew up in Charmey, Gruyère District, in the heart of the Fribourg Alps.[2] When she was 18, she had a serious motorcycle accident, which nearly resulted in the loss of her left leg.[3] [4] To recover, she was prescribed as much exercise as possible.[5] It was then when her twin sister Françoise introduced her to climbing. Through climbing, she met Erhard Loretan, who would become her partner in climbing and life for the next decade.[2] [6]
Together with Loretan, Niquille would make a number of expeditions to the Alps and to the Himalayas.[2] She climbed the Frendo pillar on Mont Blanc, made some first ascents of the Aiguilles Rouges, as well as climbed the English route on Norway's Trollryggen.[7] At the same time, she began training to become a mountain guide.
On the first day of her mountain guide course in 1984, the instructor called for a "Mr. Nicole Niquille", not expecting a woman to be participating in the course.[8]
In 1985, she made an expedition to K2, where she lived for two months at base camp, and fell in love with the Himalayas and the people.[9] On her summit attempt, she had to turn back at 7,600m due to thrombosis, possibly due to her previous motorcycle injury.[10] [7] [11] After turning back, it took her 16 hours to return to base camp on her own.[12]
The next year, she made an attempt to climb Mount Everest.[2] She cut her trip to the Himalayas short to return to Switzerland to complete her certification to become a mountain guide.[13] [14]
Her certification process required her to complete every exercise as the men on the course, where she estimates she was tested twice as hard.[15] For example, during the abseiling exercise, she had to secure the heaviest participant.[2] She persevered, and on September 27, 1986, she became the first woman to become a Swiss mountain guide.[2] [16] In Switzerland, her graduation was widely reported, as women only received the right to vote in 1971 and were excluded from the Swiss Alpine Club until 1980.[7]
She became widely known in Switzerland when she appeared in the 1991 documentary Visages suisses directed by Claude Goretta. In it, she accompanied a client to the summit of the Zinalrothorn (4,222 metres).[17] In 1991, she led a successful expedition to Gasherbrum II, where four members of the team reached the summit.[18]
On May 8, 1994, Niquille lost the use of her legs completely after suffering a concussion while picking mushrooms.[2] She was hit by a falling rock, fractured her skull, and was paralyzed.[2] [3] It would take over twenty months for her to recover, after which she had to stop her work as a mountain guide.[19] After recovery, she began a new career as a restaurant manager in Lac de Tanay.[2] There, she met her second husband Marco Vuadens,[15] as well as Ang Gelu Sherpa, the brother of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the first woman to summit Mount Everest.[2]
In 2003, Nicole and Marco established the Foundation Nicole Niquille to support the work of a new woman's hospital to be created in Nepal around Mount Everest, as well as to support the memory of Pasang Lhamu Sherpa.[20] [21]
Two years later in 2005, the Foundation Nicole Niquille opened the Pasang Lhamu Nicole Niquille Hospital, in Lukla, at the foot of the Nepalese side of Mount Everest.[2] The hospital treats 900 patients per month from the local area.
In 2022, Niquille summitted the Breithorn in Zermatt (4,163 m) in a specially designed sled, escorted by a rope team of 16 women.[22] The unique sled was made of a racing car seat attached to a snowboard, and pulled by women wearing harnesses designed for sled dogs.[23] It was her first summit in the Alps since her accident.[24] In October of that year, she was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Swiss Paraplegic Foundation for being a role model for disabled people in Switzerland.[25] [26]