Cypher is a climbing gear brand founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2003. It is headquartered in Sandy, Utah.
OutdoorGearLab compared Cypher's Huevo nuts with Black Diamond's Stoppers and found the heads identical, size for size, for notably less money. The review called them "the best nut you can buy for the money." Cypher is the in-house climbing brand of Liberty Mountain, a wholesale distributor that runs it from Sandy.
The name dates to 2003, but the lineage is older. In the 1960s Mike Sturm ran Eiger Mountain Sports Corp, a climbing distributor and manufacturer. A company named Eiger bought its pitons from Switzerland, naturally. After closing Eiger in the early 1970s, Sturm built a similar climbing program at Liberty Mountain. That line later became Advanced Base Camp, which was reborn as Cypher in 2003, after Liberty Mountain had moved to Salt Lake City.
The Huevo heads are 6061-T6 aluminum, and OutdoorGearLab called them one of the toughest nuts on the market. Cypher doesn't make its gear in Utah. Outside manufacturers build it, and Sandy is where the brand is run and shipped from.
Every Cypher ambassador teaches climbing in some form, from coaching in gyms to clinics at festivals. For nuts that OutdoorGearLab recommends to climbers building a first rack, a roster of sponsored teachers makes sense.
The Vertical Museum's example of Cypher's 25 gram Mydas wiregate carabiner carries a Climbing Technology logo and a Made in Italy stamp.
