Though various members of the Lowe family had been making gear prior to 1972 it was then that Lowe Alpine Systems was officially registered as a manufacturing business when Mike Lowe borrowed $3000 to make it official. There followed a string of iconic, innovative and revolutionary items of climbing gear created, invented and tested by various members of the family, the Footfangs we have here in the collection being one of them. The original Footfangs appeared in 1976, the first ‘step in’ crampon and the first with fitted anti ball plates, We’re not quite sure when the mono-point version arrived, we think around 1990, catering for the more technical ice and mixed climbing that was fast becoming the norm – some folk loved them, others didn’t, but they were popular to the point where the other big names such as Simond, Petzl, Black Diamond and Grivel all got in on the act and there’s no doubt that if you wanted to look like a hard man, you bought a pair and strapped them, visibly, on your sack to create the image! This, well worn pair once belonged to our old pal, Smiler Cuthbertson, kindly passed on by his wife, Clare, after Smiler headed off to the big crampon factory in the sky.