There were several brothers in the Simond family in the early 1820s, all blacksmiths and crystal hunters. They worked with wood and iron, in a forge on the banks of the Arve making agricultural implements and bells as well as tools for their crystal hunting. The first adventurers looking to explore the Mont Blanc massif found in the Simond brothers just the men they needed to make their tools for the mountains. 

By 1860 more and more visitors were coming to the valley and the brothers divided up the work at the forge, with François Simond taking on the manufacture of mountain equipment: axes, crampons, toboggans, skis etc. At this time François had a small forge at the foot of the Bossons glacier that had an electric generator. All the ingredients were now in place: he had the expertise (for working iron and wood), the technology (the forge and electricity) and the customers (explorers). And it was all in Chamonix, which was on its way to becoming the world capital of mountaineering…

François’s son Claudius started work in the forge in 1925 and improved on the infrastructure he inherited from his father. Used by climbers both on the first ascents of the highest mountains in the world and groundbreaking new Alpine climbs, Simond became known across the world as the leading manufacturer of mountaineering equipment. Simond has always combined the latest technologies with climbers’ requirements to meet the changing demands of the time: providing the best possible equipment for climbers on the hardest routes around. In 1948 Claudius introduced the first lightweight carabiner, which would allow climbers to broaden their already expanding horizons.