Petzl
Fifty years of French vertical-safety engineering, and the spine of most rope access kits — including ours.
AE
AllEquipped
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.
Brands We Love
Who makes gear worth owning
All brands →
Black Diamond
Salt Lake City, since 1989 — the company its own employees bought out of a bankruptcy caused by lawsuits over climbing gear.
Garmin
1989 — two engineers named the company after themselves, and thirty-six years later it is the reason a search party knows where you are.
Sterling Rope
Maine-made life-safety cordage since 1992 — the rope the other five brands' hardware runs on.
Leupold
Oregon, 1907 — five generations, one factory, and a company that will tell you exactly which of its own products are made there.
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 posts →The CMC MPD, and the argument it started
CMC's Multi-Purpose Device collapsed a pulley, a belay and a descent control device into one unit — and in doing so helped change how rescue teams rig. Not everyone thinks that change was an improvement.
Edelrid's Bulletproof, and the failure mode nobody inspects for
A worn carabiner is dangerous long before it's weak. The realistic risk isn't that it breaks under load — it's that it cuts the rope running over it. Edelrid's answer is a steel insert where the wear actually happens.
Rock Exotica's Omni-Block, and why sheave size is a rope decision
Every Omni-Block takes the same 13 mm rope, but the sheaves range from 1.1 to 2.6 inches. Which one you clip in is a choice about efficiency and rope life, not just about what's light enough to carry.