How do you describe a life?
Born in 1961, Molly Absolon has assumed many labels over the course of her life. Mother, wife, writer, skier, climber, teacher, environmentalist, triathlete, housewife, editor, author. The list goes on and the importance of each particular label changed for her with the years and seasons.
In 2007, a rock forced one label on Molly that she hoped never to wear: widow. On August 11, a hiker threw a bowling-ball sized boulder off a cliff edge to watch it careen down the vertical face, exploding into pieces on its fall. That rock hit Molly’s husband Pete, who was climbing below, killing him instantly.
As a writer, Molly turned to words to guide her on her subsequent journey through grief, anger, despair and ultimately love. Her upcoming memoir, Throwing Stones, is the outcome of that internal and external exploration — an exploration that ultimately led her back into life and love.
On August 11, a hiker threw a bowling-ball sized boulder off a cliff edge to watch it careen down the vertical face, exploding into pieces on its fall. That rock hit Molly’s husband Pete, who was climbing below, killing him instantly.
Molly is a graduate of Yale University and U. C. Berkeley. She has attended writers’ conferences at Bread Loaf in Vermont, Centrum in Washington and in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. She served as a communications manager for the Wyoming Outdoor Council and the National Outdoor Leadership School, where she and Pete also worked as instructors for more than 15 years. She has written 10 books on outdoor skills and is currently at work on an 11th on winter camping. She is a copyeditor and part-time columnist at the Jackson Hole News&Guide, serves on the Victor (Idaho) City Council and tries to spend as much time in the outdoors as possible.
Molly lives in Victor, Idaho, with her husband, Allen O’Bannon, and daughter Avery Absolon.
Interested in learning more?
Read the article, Dropped by Alan Prendergast in Outside Magazine
“I just lost my husband and the father of my child, and I’m mad and sad," Molly Absolon says. "I’m struggling with this feeling that Luke Rodolph has gotten off really lightly.”
View the discussion on a climber's forum on Supertopo: Pete Absolon killed in Wind River accident.
"Life is short, and we do not have too much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk the way with us. So be swift to love and make haste to be kind, and peace will be always with you."