Patagonia

Continuing on with the featured merchants on this site, we have Patagonia. Patagonia was founded by Yvon Chouinard. Chouinard got his start as a climber at a local falconry club. He would teach the students how to rappel down cliffs in order to reach the falcon aeries.

As he began to do more climbing, he became frustrated that the only pitons available were soft pitons. He went to a local junkyard and bought himself the materials to teach himself blacksmithing. He wanted to make hard iron, reusable pitons that would help his climbing. Successful in his attempt to forge these, their popularity grew, and Chouinard found that he could forge two in an hour, and sell them for $1.50 each. He set to work, making these for the climbers that wanted them.

He didn’t make much, and survived on very little. However, he eventually worked his way to becoming the largest supplier of climbing gear in the country, revolutionizing climbing equipment. The company history is quite extensive, but in the end, they began to feature more and more products in their catalogs, and worked their way into winter clothing. Similar to the North Face, they have a wide variety of high quality products, which I hope to explore here on the blog with you. You can check out more Patagonia history by check out my link above. In the meantime, feel free to browse around here for more information on your favorite winter gear.