Petzl
Fifty years of French vertical-safety engineering, and the spine of most rope access kits — including ours.
Gear to be prepared for anything.
One manufacturer at a time — who owns them now, what they actually make, and who each one is not for.
seventy-five brands rated · sixteen guides · seventeen journal entries
Guides
Questions people actually ask
All sixteen guides →What does a 5,000 lb anchor point actually mean?
It means the anchorage must be capable of supporting at least 5,000 pounds for each worker attached. But that is only half the rule: OSHA allows an alternative of a system designed, installed and used under the supervision of a qualified person with a safety factor of at least two. The 5,000 lb figure is the option you take when nobody has engineered the anchor — and it applies to the anchorage, not to the connector you bolt to it.
Read the guide →What do 8x42 and 10x42 mean on binoculars, and which should you buy?
The first number is magnification, the second is the diameter of the front lens in millimeters. Divide the second by the first and you get the exit pupil in millimeters, which is what governs low-light performance — 5.3 mm for an 8x42 against 4.2 mm for a 10x42. For general use buy the 8x42: it is steadier in the hand, has a wider field of view, and most people see more detail through it despite the lower magnification.
Read the guide →Why doesn't a boat compass point north?
Because two different errors sit between the compass and true north. Variation is the angle between magnetic north and true north at your location, and comes off the chart. Deviation is the deflection caused by your own vessel's iron, magnets and electrical gear — and unlike variation it changes as the boat changes heading. The sum of the two is compass error. Deviation is measured by swinging the compass and recorded on a deviation card.
Read the guide →Should a headlamp use rechargeable or disposable batteries?
Rechargeable for regular use — cheaper over time, and usually brighter, because a lithium-ion cell delivers higher current than three AAAs. For deep cold and for anything stored unused, primary lithium AA or AAA cells are the better answer: they are rated to minus 40 degrees Celsius where alkaline stops at about minus 18, they weigh a third less, and they will not corrode the lamp. Alkaline's real problem is not runtime, it is leakage.
Read the guide →Brands We Love
Who makes gear worth owning
All seventy-five brands →
Black Diamond
Salt Lake City, since 1989 — the company its own employees bought out of a bankruptcy caused by lawsuits over climbing gear.
ACR Electronics
Fort Lauderdale, since 1956 — the rescue beacon that talks to a government satellite system and never asks for a subscription.
Sterling Rope
Maine-made life-safety cordage since 1992 — the rope the other five brands' hardware runs on.
Harken
Pewaukee, Wisconsin, since 1968 — two brothers, a plastic ball-bearing block, an Olympic sailing habit, and the employee-owned company that now owns SMC.
CAMP Safety
From a blacksmith's forge in Premana, 1889 — the brand that made professional PPE light enough to forget you're wearing it.
The Journal
Notes from the trail
All seventeen posts →
Carbon monoxide on boats: why half the victims were outdoors, and what a detector can't do
The space under a swim platform can hold six times the concentration that's immediately dangerous to life. A compliant marine CO alarm may take fifteen minutes to sound at a fraction of that. Both facts are true, and together they explain who the detector actually protects.
Your flares expire in 42 months. Almost nobody can tell you what to do with the old ones
Federal law requires you to carry visual distress signals, requires you to replace them every 42 months, and then goes quiet. Firing them off is a felony, the trash is illegal, and two counties in California will take them.
The only life jacket with an expiry date: inflatable PFDs, and who tells you when they fail
An inflatable PFD is the one piece of life-saving equipment aboard with consumable parts. It also sits outside the CPSC's jurisdiction, so there is no public recall database — which makes a manufacturer's own advisory archive the only systematic record that exists.