Vertical caving terminology and methods > General hardware
A French company that makes rope working equipment, and pioneered many aspects of SRT. Within Europe, this is one of the largest SRT equipment manufacturers, and many cavers will have their entire set of SRT gear produced by Petzl. Insultingly called "pretzel", but some people are not aware of the joke and think you are stupid.
It should be noted that while Petzl is by far the best known European manufacturer, there are a great many other respected companies within Europe that produce similar equipment, often with each of the companies basing their designs on each other's. Some actually make them for others, and allow the other companies to brand the products as if they made it themselves. Examples include AustriAlpin and Stubai in Austria, Ocún, Rock Empire and Singing Rock in the Czech Republic, Aventure Verticale (AV), Beal, Edelweiss, Courant and Péguet in France, Edelrid and Salewa in Germany, Alp Design, Camp, Climbing Technologies (CT), Grivel, Kong and Raumer in Italy, Fixe and MTDE in Spain, Mammut in Switzerland, and DMM, Heightec, ISC, Lyon Equipment, Marlow, Titan Climbing and Wild Country in the United Kingdom. Many others can be included when considering similar equipment aimed at rope access and arboriculture (Foin in the United Kingdom, Honeywell and Notch in the USA, Pensafe in Canada), sailing or kayaking (Palm in the United Kingdom). Outside of Europe, there are a great many trusted equipment manufacturers, such as Black Diamond, BlueWater, CMI Equipment, Cypher Climbing, Glacier Black, Mad Rock, Metolius, Pigeon Mountain Industries (PMI), Rock Exotica, Seattle Manufacturing Corporation (SMC), Sterling Rope and Trango in the USA, Alpen Pass, Big Compra, For Rope, Safetec and Task in Brazil, and (to a very small extent) Kailas in China. However, even within the USA, where it is common to use a mix of American brands, the market is still dominated by European brands, particularly Petzl.
Its founder French caver Fernand Petzl was one of the early users of many aspects of vertical caving originally, exploring the Dent de Crolles system in the Grenoble region of France since 1934, mostly along with French caver Pierre Chevalier and other pioneers. He was then among the first to use nylon ropes underground along with their inventor Pierre Chevalier in 1942-1943. By 1968, he was manufacturing SRT devices for sale, in his workshop, largely designs and devices created by French caver Bruno Dressler. The company was founded in 1975, and continued to produce devices based on the same designs.
This history section only covers Petzl. This article also has a detailed history of many of the other devices and techniques that are used for vertical caving.
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