Its name comes from the town Crolles where Petzl's company headquarters are located but might also be a reference to the nearby cave system of the Dent de Crolles, the exploration of which triggered a lot of technical effort leading to innovation in caving equipment.
The scaling-pole (1940), nylon ropes (1942), use of explosives in caves (1947) and mechanical rope-ascenders (Henri Brenot's "monkeys", first used by Chevalier and Brenot in a cave in 1934) can be traced historically to the exploration of the Dent de Crolles cave system.