I learned to love climbing when I was growing up. Our house was perched on top of a small cliff and each fall when we'd rake up all the leaves we'd throw them off the cliff rather than burning them. I used to huck myself off the cliff and into the pile of leaves over and over; it wasn't long before I found it was more fun to climb back up the cliff than to hike around it. Real (?) climbing followed soon after when I took a climbing class from Pete Lev at Exum Guides in the Tetons. The year was 1968.

I created my first piece of climbing gear when it was time to try my hand at ice climbing. I owned a 70cm piolet a pair of strap-on crampons and an unfortunate tool called a "Crag Hammer" a bastardized piton hammer made for clean climbing. I guess the concept was to hammer in a nut (because we hadn't learned to trust them yet) then use the long pick to pry out the welded-in piece. Knowing I wouldn't be able to climb steep ice with just a piolet I hacked some teeth into the pick and went climbing. Damn thing actually stuck pretty well.

Things have changed a fair bit since the days when a pile of leaves was a crash pad and it took a file and some imagination to make a decent ice tool. But I still love climbing and I still work hard on designing and improving climbing gear. Our gear will make your life at the crags easier safer and more fun. You can use it comfortably knowing that it meets or exceeds all CE performance and QC standards. More importantly it will meet your high standards so you can climb with confidence.

In 1997 Trango merged with the women's clothing company Stonewear Designs to form the corporate entity Great Trango Holdings Inc. The founder Sari Nicoll had designed the very first sports bra with an internal wrap-around bra and sales were at the point where she needed to partner with someone to help the brand grow.

Then 2000 I was approached by Jessica Franco (then Foose) who was running the handhold company eGrips. Fueled by the best shapers in the industry Ty Foose and Ian Powell her little company was at the same crossroads that Stonewear Designs had been; huge growth so she needed to either partner with someone or implode. So in 2001 eGrips became the third brand of the GTHI conglomerate.

In addition to the brands we own Trango is proud to distribute PMI Dynamic Ropes and SMC in the US markets.