Edelrid
Founded 1863 in the Allgäu — the company that invented the rope everyone else's gear runs on.
Teufelberger
Making rope since 1790 — still family-owned, eight generations on, and the name arborists say first.
In 1790 a twenty-one-year-old named Jakob Teufelberger started twisting hemp rope for Austrian farmers. The company he founded is still making rope, still 100% family-owned, and is now the brand most professional arborists reach for without thinking about it — treeMOTION harnesses, Tachyon climbing line, and the KM III static that half the rescue world runs on. Two hundred and thirty years of doing one thing.
- 1790Jakob Teufelberger's hemp ropery, aged twenty-one
- 8Generations on, and still 100% family-owned
- 2007Acquired New England Ropes — and KM III with it
What we'd reach for
- treeMOTION Pro X and Essential XThe arborist harness that reset expectations for how a climbing saddle should move with you. If you climb trees professionally you have worn one or wanted one.
- TachyonThe arborist climbing line people get genuinely attached to. Handles well new, and keeps handling well after a season.
- KM III and KM III MaxThe static rope that came with New England Ropes and became a rescue and rope access default across North America.
- Sirius Bull Rope and tREXRigging line for controlled dismantling, where shock loads are the normal case.
- STRATOS Winch Pro and arborWINCHSynthetic winch line replacing steel wire rope. Same pull, a fraction of the weight, and it doesn't whip lethally when it fails.
- pulleySAVER and multiSAVERCambium savers that protect the tree and make retrieval sane.
- hipSTAR and fimblCLIMBWork positioning lanyards built around how a climber actually hangs.
- drenaLINE and GravityClimbing lines across the range, from supple and grippy to fast and slick.
In 1790, a twenty-one-year-old called Jakob Teufelberger set up a hemp ropery in Bad Wimsbach, Austria, making rope for farmers.
For scale: that is the year Washington gave the first State of the Union, the year after the French Revolution began, and sixty-three years before Edelrid existed. The company he started is still going, still making rope, and is still 100% family-owned — eight generations later.
They moved to Wels in 1901, onto a 250-meter plot that is still the headquarters today. Martin Teufelberger, the fourth generation, added steel wire rope in 1917. Synthetic fiber arrived in 1941. Along the way they acquired New England Ropes in Fall River, Massachusetts in 2007, and took over Mammut’s climbing rope manufacturing in 2016.
Two hundred and thirty years, one material.
The arborist standard
If you had to name the brand that professional tree climbers reach for, it is this one.
The treeMOTION harness changed what arborists expect from a saddle — how it moves through a canopy, how the bridge works, how it sits over eight hours in a tree rather than eight minutes on a wall. Tachyon is the climbing line people are quietly loyal to. The pulleySAVER and multiSAVER solved cambium protection and retrieval in one object.
Put those together and Teufelberger is a complete tree care system from one manufacturer — which almost nobody else can claim.
KM III, and how it got here
North American rescue and rope access teams have run on KM III for decades. It came to Teufelberger with the New England Ropes acquisition in 2007, and it remains one of the most specified static ropes on the continent.
This is worth knowing when you’re comparing rope brands: Teufelberger is simultaneously a 230-year-old Austrian ropery and the owner of a Massachusetts rope mill founded in 1967. European heritage, American manufacturing, depending which line you’re buying.
Fiber rope where steel used to be
The forestry side is the part most people miss.
STRATOS Winch Pro and arborWINCH are synthetic winch lines built to replace steel wire rope on pulling and recovery work. Same pull, a fraction of the weight, far easier to handle — and critically, synthetic line doesn’t store and release energy the way a steel cable does when it parts. Anyone who has seen a wire rope fail understands why that matters.
This is a category no other brand on this site serves, and it opens forestry, recovery and off-road winching as adjacent markets.
Where they fit
Arborist and tree care. Harnesses, climbing lines, rigging rope, lanyards, friction savers — the complete kit.
Forestry. Synthetic winch and pulling line, replacing steel.
Rope access and rescue. KM III and the static range, plus low-stretch line for hauling and lowering.
Rigging. Sirius Bull Rope, tREX and the controlled-dismantling lines that take repeated shock loading.
Why we rate them
Two hundred and thirty years of one material. Nobody accumulates that kind of knowledge quickly, and nobody can buy it.
They own arborist outright. treeMOTION and Tachyon aren’t market leaders by marketing spend. Climbers chose them.
Still family-owned. Through eight generations, two world wars and the entire transition from hemp to Dyneema, it never got sold to a holding company. That continuity is why the rope is consistent batch after batch.
More on the treeMOTION in the journal: the standard it isn’t rated for — what the certification list says about how tree work differs from work at height.
When we reach for arborist or forestry rope, we reach for Teufelberger.
More in Work at height
All brands →The nearest neighbors on the shelf — same categories first, same department after that.
Petzl
Fifty years of French vertical-safety engineering, and the spine of most rope access kits — including ours.
Singing Rock
Founded by Czech climbers in 1992, three years after the Velvet Revolution — and still the best value on this page.
CAMP Safety
From a blacksmith's forge in Premana, 1889 — the brand that made professional PPE light enough to forget you're wearing it.