When climbers fail to make progress up a cliff face just using hands & feet, they either fall off, abseil off or resort to artificial tactics, the latter being the most popular! ‘Artificial’ can involve one simple pull on a running belay to overcome a tricky bit, or a whole climb where a vast array of exotic gear is used: pitons; bolts; mashies; bashies; knife-blades & ladders (the ladders climbers use are called ‘etriers’ – borrowed from the French).

The technique is fairly simple, the climber selects a suitable anchor from his/her arsenal, places it in the rock, clips in the etrier, steps on it and hopes the anchor doesn’t fail!

Etriers usually have three or four rungs and somewhere along the line someone came up with the idea of an Elevator – one of which we have here in the collection. The single piece of webbing is attached at one end and passes through a non-return buckle at the other – step on it and pull the webbing down and up you go, if you’re lucky!

We don’t think Elevators were very popular and while big wall climbers still use artificial techniques, the ‘art’ is pretty much history as most artificial climbs have now been climbed without aid.