Fernand Petzl (April 7, 1913 – May 31, 2003) was a

caver Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology is ...

and manufacturer of outdoor equipment under the brand name

Petzl Petzl is a French manufacturer of climbing gear, caving gear, work-at-height equipment, and headlamps based in Crolles (near Grenoble), France. The company was created by the cave explorer Fernand Petzl in the mid-1970s. Their three specialtie ...

. Petzl lived most of his life in the village of

Saint-Ismier Saint-Ismier () is a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. It is part of the Grenoble urban unit The urban unit of Grenoble (french: unité urbaine de Grenoble) is a French urban unit centred on the city of Grenoble. An urban ...

(near

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

at the foot of the mountain

Dent De Crolles The Dent de Crolles () is a karstic mountain (2,062 m) of the Chartreuse Mountains range, north east of Grenoble, Isère, France. It has a characteristic "tooth-like" profile and is easily recognizable in the Isère Valley (Grésivaudan) in the G ...

. He first went

caving Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology i ...

in Trou du Glaz in 1933, and was immediately captivated by the idea of exploring beyond the

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

's known limits. Subsequent explorations there with Pierre Chevalier, Charles Petit-Didier and others culminated in connections to other caves in the massif, forming the Réseau de la Dent de Crolles which, in 1947, became the deepest cave in the world. Petzl also participated in explorations in the

Gouffre Berger The Gouffre Berger is a French cave discovered on 24 May 1953 by Joseph Berger, Bouvet, Ruiz de Arcaute and Marc Jouffrey. From 1953 to 1963, it was regarded as the deepest cave in the world at , relinquishing this title to the previous contender, ...

, which set a new world depth record in 1956 as the first cave deeper than 1000 metres (-1122m). Petzl was a proponent of cave explorations by small teams, an innovation at the time. During this period, when there were no manufacturers of specialized caving equipment, cavers adapted equipment from other sources, or made their own. After 1933 Petzl began making rope ladders for his own use, developed a scaling-pole in 1940, and began testing the first nylon ropes in 1942. In 1968 Bruno Dressler asked Petzl, who worked as a metals machinist, to build a rope-ascending tool he had developed, and in the 1970s Petzl started a small caving equipment manufacturing company that bore his name. In subsequent years the Petzl brand was expanded to include climbing and ski-mountaineering gear, and continues today as one of the world’s best–known manufacturers of mountaineering equipment.

References

* Meredith, Mike ''Interview with Fernand Petzl'', Caving International no.7, 1980. * Chevalier, Pierre ''Subterranean Climbers'', Faber & Faber, 1951 and Zephyrus Press, 1975. 1913 births 2003 deaths French cavers 20th-century French businesspeople French people of Romanian descent French people of German descent {{France-business-bio-stub