Frédéric Nicole, more commonly known as Fred Nicole, is a Swiss professional climber born in 1970 in Vevey. Fred Nicole began climbing at the age of 13, with his brother François Nicole, and three years later, in 1986, he succeeded in the first repetition of the route Le Toit d'Auguste (his brother did the 2nd repetition shortly after).

This route, opened by the French climber Patrick Berhault near Nice, had been tried by many climbers, without success so far. Fred then offered a rating of 8b+, the highest level of difficulty at that time. At the end of the 1980s, Fred discovered the climbing site of Saint-Loup in Switzerland.