THE MAKING OF THE BD HOTWIRE CARABINER

Racking up with a wire-gate carabiner today is about as standard as it gets. But before 1995, nobody had even considered the possibility… that is except for two BD designers. This is the story of how the world's first wire-gate carabiner designed for climbing came into existence and changed the game forever.

"So many people aren't able to make that jump from what they've seen … to what could be."

Those words—spoken in a wry British accent—hang in the air. Between bites of tangerine chicken at Salt Lake City's Dragon Diner, the spry, 56-year-old climber sitting across the table picks up what sailors call a "shackle" between his thumb and forefinger—the latter of which is wrapped in dirty climbing tape.

He inspects the shackle through round, wire-frame John Lennon glasses and cracks a grin.

"We thought, 'hell, let's give it a try.'"

Flash back to the year 1993.

The spry Brit is in his mid-30's, and he's already made a name for himself as one of the world's boldest climbers. Jonny Woodward (aka Woody) traded the gritstone of England for the sunny crags of America and was tearing it up. From Yosemite Valley to the Utah Desert, Woodward had already racked up an impressive resume of first ascents and runout testpieces, leaving instant classics like Zion's 10-pitch Moonlight Buttress (5.12+) in his wake.

But on this particular day, during an afternoon at his part-time gig as "junior" Designer for Black Diamond, Woodward was facing a completely different kind of crux.

"So many people aren't able to make that jump from what they've seen … to what could be."

He inspects the shackle through round, wire-frame John Lennon glasses and cracks a grin.

"We thought, 'hell, let's give it a try.'"

Flash back to the year 1993.

But on this particular day, during an afternoon at his part-time gig as "junior" Designer for Black Diamond, Woodward was facing a completely different kind of crux.

Smooth As A Beamer's Tranny

The coworker with the vision was none other than Andrew McLean. By 1993, McLean was already making waves in the skiing world for his audacious descents down the Wasatch's steepest couloirs and barely skiable chutes. By combining adroit climbing skills with deft skiing, McLean was redefining American skiing one chute at a time. He and Alex Lowe would rise before dawn and shred the gnar before work, in turn bringing the term Dawn Patrol to skiing.

Yet, his contributions as a Senior Designer for BD were perhaps even more impactful. McLean had already designed the Whippet—an ingenious hybrid of ice axe and ski pole—which was on its way to becoming an indelible tool for any diehard steep skier. And his first projects for BD revolved around the company's hallmark … carabiners.

Jonny went to work, aiming for that BD quality smoothness. The goal was to figure out how to make the spring force fairly constant with the right amount of force through the entire range of motion, you know, like a Beamer's tranny.

"Really it comes down to choosing a wire with the right amount of diameter to have the right amount of stiffness," says Jonny. "And getting the holes as close together as you realistically can, so that you don't increase the spring force as it opens and closes."

Since it's not pivoting about a single axis, the gate, Jonny explains, needs to modularly deform when you open it. In other words, one "leg" of the gate has to compress while the other leg needs to stretch.

"If you look at it really critically, the gate opens, and it moves slightly to the side," Jonny notes. "So, the closer together you can get the holes, the more it's like a single pivot point, so the less it changes as you push on it."

Despite the scientific sounding nature of Jonny's work on the gate, it really all came down to feel. More specifically, what he knew a climber would like to feel.

"You just have to play with those things until it feels nice."

Jonny emphasizes the point by thumbing the gate of a modern HotWire that Andrew brought to the Diner.

The Paperclip Biner

The problem was, the HotWire prototypes Andrew and Jonny had made were so different in appearance that climbers balked at testing them.

"It was really interesting," remembers Jonny. "When we started getting these biners with the nice bodies and the gates that worked—and they're totally safe because these things went through a bunch of testing before we sent them out—people would look at these things, with the diameter of the gate being so much smaller, and they just started calling it a paperclip biner!"

However, one well-known climber named Russ Clune—who also repped BD gear when he wasn't pushing the country's current climbing standards—started to take them out in the field and … gasps … even whip on them.

"I was one of the guinea pigs sent out to test them," says Russ. "I guess since I fell a lot and Woodward didn't, they figured I was a better crash test dummy."

Launching Climbing's First Wire-Gate Carabiner

Andrew and Jonny had all the data. They had done all the lab tests, and guys like Clune had taken them into the field. However, there was still some internal resistance.

The fact of the matter was, BD's reputation was at stake.

"It was too radical in appearance for some people," says Jonny.

"And when you have to put your faith into an unknown quantity, there's a certain part of the company that was hesitant."

Andrew remembers that Peter Metcalf—BD's founder and then president—was a particularly hard sell.

"The numbers they were projecting to sell were really small," says Jonny. "And you know, that's understandable. We were throwing this new, bizarre concept out into the climbing marketplace. But within just a few months, it was obvious that this was going to be a big hit."

"What really sold it was having climbers getting behind it," Andrew explains. "You had aid climbers who were like, 'wow, you just reduced the weight of my rack, and alpine climbers who liked that it didn't jam with snow, and sport climbers who liked the way the gate worked and felt."

Jonny and Andrew were psyched. In roughly 18 months, from the rough idea, to the completed HotWire which launched in 1995, two climbers had teamed up to redefine perhaps climbing's most crucial tool—launching the world's first wire-gate carabiner for the sport.

"Andrew and I were proud of the fact that we'd done something that was a little bit of a game changer," remembers Jonny.

When asked if he still thinks about the influence they had on the climbing world when he racks up with wire-gate biners today, Jonny is poignant.

"I do feel glad I had the opportunity to be living at a time of climbing evolution, where you can have a simple idea like this, perfect it, and have a profound influence on the way climbing equipment is used in the future," he says.