The Simond brothers were blacksmiths based in the little town of Chamonix in the shadow of Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain. Initially they produced tools for farming and every day life, using the skills of combining metal with wood, which transferred easily to the manufacture of ice axes when the ‘Golden Age’ of mountaineering came along in the 1860s, a new wave of mountaineers arrived requiring Alpenstocks & ice axes to ply their trade – the Simond brothers provided.

Claudius Simond took over from his father, Francois, in 1925 and the axe we have here in the collection was produced during his reign, probably around 1950. Edmund Hilary took a different version of this axe to the summit of Mt Everest in 1953, we have a similar one elsewhere in the collection.

Simond was sold to a company called Wichard in 2004 and in 2008 Decathlon became the major shareholder. In 2025 Simond retains its name, and reputation, under the aegis of Decathlon.