In 1989, Chouinard Equipment, the piton forge that had outfitted American climbing for three decades, was bankrupted by liability lawsuits. Its employees refused to let it die: led by Peter Metcalf, they bought the assets, renamed the company Black Diamond, and in 1991 moved it to Salt Lake City, to the literal base of the Wasatch. A gear company owned by the people who used the gear, reborn from the wreckage of the industry’s most storied brand: that is the founding, and it still explains the tools.
The short version: Black Diamond, born 1989 from the employee buyout of Chouinard Equipment, is the American reference point for climbing hardware, trekking poles, headlamps, and ski gear. Buy it for cams, carabiners, harnesses, the Spot headlamp lineage, and the best trekking poles in the business. Its apparel is improving but is not why you come; and its corporate story is currently an open question worth knowing about.
Where Black Diamond came from
The Chouinard lineage means BD and Patagonia are siblings: one inherited the clothing, the other the hardware. From Salt Lake City, BD built the modern rack: Camalots that defined camming devices, the airNET harness, gloves and skis and avalanche tools born from the Wasatch backcountry out the back door. Since 2010 the company has been owned by publicly traded Clarus Corporation, and in May 2026 Clarus opened a formal strategic review that could include selling the brand. Whoever owns it next inherits a workshop, not just a logo.
What they actually make well
Climbing protection and hardware above all: cams, stoppers, quickdraws, belay devices trusted on every continent. Trekking poles that the thru-hiking world treats as default. Headlamps that made “Spot” a generic term. Ski touring bindings, skins, and the avalanche safety line. Gloves that working guides wear out and rebuy.
Built to last?
Hardware is rated, tested, and famously durable; BD’s quality culture comes from making things whose failure means funerals. The tension in the story is corporate: the 2019 to 2020 boycott calls over then-chairman Warren Kanders’ ties to a tear gas manufacturer cut deep in the climbing community, and Safariland divested those products under pressure. Longtime CEO Peter Metcalf, separately, became one of the loudest industry voices for public lands, helping pull the Outdoor Retailer trade show out of Utah over the Bears Ears rollbacks. This is a brand whose community holds it accountable, loudly, and the brand is better for it.
The causes they actually fund
BD’s giving concentrates where its users live: climbing access and public lands advocacy, avalanche safety education, and long support of Access Fund and the organizations that keep crags and canyons open. The public-lands fights it has waded into center on the same Colorado Plateau ground defended by the Grand Canyon Trust.
Where this gear earns its place
Home ground could not be more literal: the Bonneville Shoreline Trail traverses the foothills above the office, and the Wasatch granite and powder that shaped every product are minutes away. Proving grounds run from desert cracks in the Colorado Plateau to alpine ridgelines anywhere on the Trail Atlas.
The honest take
Hardware: buy with total confidence. Apparel: fine, improving, not yet a reason to switch from the specialists. The Clarus strategic review means the brand’s stewardship may change hands; watch that space if brand values drive your buying. And in headlamps, Petzl trades blows with them summit for summit.
Every brand comes from somewhere; this one comes from a bankruptcy the climbers refused to accept. More makers in Brands We Love. Last verified July 2026.