Wild Country – The man who made Friends

In early 1978, an extraordinary new invention for rock climbers was featured
on the BBC television science show Tomorrow’s World. It was called the
‹Friend›, and it not only made the sport safer, it helped push the limits of
the possible. The company that made them was called Wild Country, the
brainchild of Mark Vallance. Within six months, Vallance was selling Friends
in sixteen countries. Wild Country would go on to develop much of the gear
that transformed climbing in the 1980s.

Mark Vallance’s influence on the outdoor world extends far beyond the company
he founded. He owned and opened the influential retailer Outside in the Peak
District and was part of the team that built The Foundry, Sheffield’s premier
climbing wall – the first modern climbing gym in Britain. He worked for the
Peak District National Park and served on its board. He even found time to
climb 8,000-metre peaks and the Nose on El Capitan. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s
disease in his mid fifties and robbed of his plans for retirement, Vallance
found a new sense of purpose as a reforming president of the British
Mountaineering Council.

In Wild Country, Vallance traces his story, from childhood influences like
Robin Hodgkin and Sir Jack Longland, to two years in Antarctica, where he was
base commander of the UK’s largest and most southerly scientific station at
Halley Bay, before his fateful meeting with Ray Jardine, the man who invented
Friends, in Yosemite.

Trenchant, provocative and challenging, Wild Country is a remarkable personal
story and a fresh perspective on the role of the outdoors in British life and
the development of climbing in its most revolutionary phase.

Mark Vallance was born in Cheshire. After watching the film of the 1953 ascent
of Everest, he developed an obsession for climbing and exploration. Educated
at Abbotsholme School and Goldsmiths, University of London, he spent two years
in Halley Bay working for the British Antarctic Survey. In 1977, he formed
Wild Country to manufacture Ray Jardine’s revolutionary climbing protection
device, called Friends, launching one of the most influential outdoor brands
in British history. In 1990 he built and opened Outside, a new kind of outdoor
retailer in the UK.