BLACK DIAMOND EQUIPMENT: Modern mountaineering
The company was founded in the late 1950s, in the Yosemite Valley. Passionate about mountains and mountaineering, its founder, Yvon Chouinard, together with his climbing partner Tom Frost, started making pitons by hand and selling them from their car boot — a highly successful endeavour.
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Over time, they launched new equipment on the market, aspiring for clean and eco-friendly climbing without compromising the safety of climbers. In 1978, they reinvented basic ice axes and crampons to enable vertical ice climbing, which they dubbed “Climbing Tools”. This was how modern vertical ice climbing was born.
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Most of the new developments at the time led to technical improvements in the practice of mountain activities while providing solutions to ethical and environmental issues.
In 1989, a group of former employees linked with external investors, and even some clients, decided to buy the company, with Black Diamond Equipment chosen as its new name. This new team decided to broaden its horizons by carefully developing other mountain safety items, and technical equipment for mountaineering, climbing, cross-country skiing and the outdoors in general, and by launching a new line of technical clothing.
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They now define themselves as a company that actively uses its own products, since many of its employees are avid climbers, runners, mountaineers, snowboarders and skiers. This means that they perfectly understand their customers’ needs, who are mostly professional winter athletes.
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Black Diamond is a classic, benchmark brand for mountain sports, continuously testing the quality and reliability of its products, both in the lab and out in the field, working to ensure the right combination of high-tech materials, maintaining high standards and producing approved, optimally performing safety systems that provide great protection for athletes.
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With an extensive production line focused on the outdoors, here are just some of the products offered by Black Diamond Equipment: all kinds of textile garments and technical footwear, carabiners, quickdraws, harnesses, active and passive climbing protection, belay devices, chalk bags, helmets, ice axes, crampons, ice screws, cross-country skiing and avalanche safety equipment, gaiters, tents and shelters, lighting, trekking poles and backpacks.
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Some of the brand’s flagship products are:
– Climbing equipment: highly performing products, even in the toughest environments, with its crampons, harnesses, helmets, ropes and chalk bags particularly high in demand. All these products are equipped with technology inspired by recent scientific advancements.
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– Headlamps: lightweight, efficient and easy to carry and use, they are essential for all kinds of outdoor activities at night or in hours of low light.
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– Backpacks, footwear and textiles: these products are distinguished by their highly impressive properties, technical features, incredible comfort and resistance.
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– Poles: an excellent product for those who love trekking, skiing and/or snowboarding, providing excellent support and stability on all types of surfaces, as well as great durability.
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