Wild Country

Wild Country came about under British climber Mark Vallance and was set up to manufacture what was to become the most famous piece of rock climbing gear of all time, the Friend. Friends were the brainchild of US climber Ray Jardine who Mark had met in the USA a few years earlier. When Ray couldn’t find a partner in the US to develop and produce his revolutionary new camming unit, Mark and he joined forces and Wild Country was born. Founded in 1977, at a tiny factory in a village in the heart of the UK's Peak district, Wild Country went from strength to strength on the back of this revolutionary piece of climbing equipment and became a name synonymous with hard climbing everywhere. Wild Country under Mark Vallance went on to design and market the first curved nuts (Rocks), import Boreal sticky rock shoes into the UK and, due to partnerships with leading climbers and designers of the day, come up with radical harness, glove and tent designs. In later years the company split and the glove and tent department morphed into Terra Nova. More recently, following the retirement of Mark Vallance, the company has been taken over by Salewa - though it still operates from its original base in the Peak District.

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