Wild Country is a major manufacturer of rock climbing

Rock climbing

Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...

 equipment, and is most noted for introducing the Friend, a spring-loaded camming device. The company is based in Tideswell

Tideswell

Tideswell is a village and civil parish in the Peak District of Derbyshire, in England. It lies east of Buxton on the B6049, in a wide dry valley on a limestone plateau, at an altitude of above sea level, and is within the District of Derbyshire Dales...

 in the English Peak District

Peak District

The Peak District is an upland area in central and northern England, lying mainly in northern Derbyshire, but also covering parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, and South and West Yorkshire....

, close to some of the UK's most popular climbing areas.

Wild Country was founded in 1977 by British climber Mark Vallance, after he met American climber Ray Jardine

Ray Jardine

Ray Jardine is an American rock climber who, with Bill Price, in May 1979, was the first to free climb the West Face of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley...

 who had made and used prototypes of the camming devices he had invented but could find nobody to produce them in volume. Vallance was convinced of their commercial potential and, with the collaboration of Jardine, set up a factory in the Peak District to manufacture the devices which they had for a long time called Friends. Friends, though expensive, became immediately popular with climbers, and established Wild Country as a major climbing gear manufacturer. Soon the company started expanding its range which now includes climbing harness

Climbing harness

A climbing harness is a piece of equipment used in certain types of rock-climbing, abseiling or other activities requiring the use of ropes to provide access or safety...

es, nut

Nut (climbing)

In rock climbing, a nut is a metal wedge threaded on a wire, used for protection by wedging it into a crack in the rock. Quickdraws are clipped to the nut wire by the ascending climber and the rope threads through the quickdraw. Nuts come in a variety of sizes and styles, and several different...

s, carabiner

Carabiner

A carabiner or karabiner is a metal loop with a sprung or screwed gate that is used to quickly and reversibly connect components in safety-critical systems. The word comes from "Karabinerhaken", meaning "hook for a carbine" in German.-Use:...

s, and other climbing equipment. For a while they also produced tent

Tent

A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over or attached to a frame of poles or attached to a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs...

s, backpack

Backpack

A backpack is, in its simplest form, a cloth sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders, but there can be exceptions...

s, and technical clothing. In 1986 Wild Country acquired Clog, a Welsh climbing equipment manufacturer; the Clog brand is now used to market some of Wild Country's cheaper ranges of equipment. The company also distributes various other international climbing brands in the UK.

In 1979 Vallance, introduced the Wild Country Rocks; passive protection which used three contact points compared to the usual two of other designs. The range of classic nuts has now been superseded by anodised rocks, which feature coloured anodising on the material to make identification easier http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/review.php?id=1074. Both these ranges are produced in China, though their smaller superlight range is still produced in the UK.