Yvon Chouinard Wife and Net Worth After Billions In Charity

Yvon Chouinard was very important to the success of Patagonia

Patagonia has always cared about activism and environmental issues. A graduate student working to protect wildlife near the company’s offices in Ventura, California, got an office, a mailbox, and money from the company.

In the mid-1970s, Patagonia was on the verge of going out of business because they were selling cheap, low-quality shirts. Then, Chouinard’s accountant put him in touch with a Los Angeles Mafioso who offered him a loan with 28% interest. He did not accept the money, and Patagonia was able to fix its failing business.

Between the mid-1980s and 1990, sales went from $20 million to $100 million. Today, Patagonia makes $800 million a year. Until then, Chouinard did not realize that he had become a businessman. But he didn’t want to be a drone for a big company.

Patagonia eliminated private offices in 1984. In 1986, the business pledged to donate 10% of its pre-tax profits to small groups that worked to protect the environment.

Early years

Chouinard’s French-Canadian father was a handyman, mechanic, and plumber. In 1947, Yvon moved to Southern California with his family from Maine. They went to church.

Royal Robbins and Tom Frost were some of his early climbing partners.

He was a member of the Sierra Club and started the Southern California Falconry Club when he was young. His research on falcon nests led him to begin rock climbing.

[4] He decided to make his own climbing tools to save money and adapt them to the way he climbed. He taught himself blacksmithing and eventually started a business.

From rock climber in Yosemite to top alpinist

Chouinard was one of Yosemite’s best climbers during its “Golden Age”. He is one of the main characters in the movie Valley Uprising, which was made around this time (2014). In 1964, he climbed the North America Wall with Royal Robbins, Tom Frost, and Chuck Pratt. They did not use fixed ropes. The next year, he and TM Herbert climbed the Muir Wall on El Capitan. This is a better style of first ascent than has been done before. Chouinard is the best person to talk about how important style is to modern rock climbing, which is based on it.

In 1961, he went to Western Canada with Fred Beckey and was the first person to climb the North Face of Mount Edith Cavell in the Rocky Mountains, the Beckey-Chouinard Route on the South Howser Tower in the Bugaboos, and the North Face of Mount Sir. Donald in the Purcell Mountains (Selkirk Mountains). These climbs opened his eyes to the idea of ​​using Yosemite big-wall climbing techniques for mountain climbing, and his advocacy is essential to modern, high-level alpinism. Also in 1961, he went to Shawangunk Ridge for the first time. He free climbed the first pitch of Matinee, which at the time was the most difficult free climb on the Shawangunk Ridge. He also brought chrome-molybdenum steel pitons to the area, which revolutionized the way climbers were protected. In 1968, he and Dick Dorworth, Chris Jones, Lito Tejada-Flores, and Douglas Tompkins climbed Cerro Fitzroy in Patagonia via a new route called The Californian Route. This is the third time the mountain has been climbed.

Chouinard has also been to the European Alps and Pakistan and climbed there.

Chouinard Equipment, Ltd

In 1957, he purchased a used coal-fired forge and began making hardened steel pitons for use in Yosemite Valley. He made money by selling pitons out of the back of his car when he wasn’t surfing or climbing. From 1957 to 1960, when big wall climbing began in Yosemite, improved pitons were a big reason why. He started Chouinard Equipment, Ltd. because his piton is very famous.

Chouinard and his business partner Tom Frost began looking into ice climbing gear in the late 1960s. They modified the basic tools (crampons and ice axes) to use them on steeper ice. Using these new tools and his book Climbing Ice (1978), he turned ice climbing into a sport. [needs citation]

Around 1970, he found that Yosemite’s cracks were severely damaged by the use of iron pitons made by his company. Seventy percent of his income comes from these pitons. [8] In 1971 and 1972, Chouinard and Frost produced new aluminum chockstones called Hexentrics and Stoppers. They also produced steel Crack-n-Ups, which were less popular, and made it the company’s mission to promote new tools and new climbing methods called “clean climbing.” This idea revolutionized rock climbing and made the company more successful, even though it hurt sales of the piton, which had become his most important product.

In 1974, they applied for a US patent on Hexentrics, and on April 6, 1976, they got it. Black Diamond Equipment is still the company that makes it.

After trips to the Alps in Europe and the Sierra Nevada ice gullies in the fall of the 1960s, Chouinard tried to make some major changes to the tools and techniques used for ice climbing. He removed the flex from the crampons to make them stiffer and better for pointing forward. He made the tip of the stone hammer point so that it would grip the ice better. He developed ice screws with a larger cross section and lighter materials. He tried ice axes with different picks and blades. Before this, many people thought that ice climbing was just cutting steps. He tried to replace the hand held ice picks used for climbing with a small head for an ice ax called Climaxe.

Chouinard Equipment, Ltd. filed for bankruptcy in 1989 so it wouldn’t have to worry about being sued for damages. Through the Chapter 11 process, the employees of Chouinard Equipment, Ltd. purchased the company’s physical assets, and changed the company’s name to Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd.