What Gear Should You Start Your Canyoneering Journey With?
What Gear Should You Start With?
Just getting interested in the sport of Canyoneering? One of the most common questions we hear from beginners is: what gear do I actually need? The honest answer still has a lot of “it depends” in it — are you going solo or with a group? Do you have friends who already own gear you can borrow or split cost on? What season, and what canyon?
That said, there’s a baseline that doesn’t change. To drop into a Class 3 technical slot canyon (a canyon where rappelling will be involved), there are six mandatory pieces of gear — plus one more we’d add to that list ourselves: a helmet. Below is a breakdown of what each does and why it’s non-negotiable, split into two groups: gear you wear and carry as a person, and gear that scales with how many rappels are in the canyon you’re running.
Personal Gear
This is gear you buy once and bring with you on every trip, regardless of the canyon.
Harness — This one gets a bit confusing as there are many types of harnesses out there. Some of you may be getting into the sport coming from a climbing background and have plenty of climbing harnesses sitting around. A climbing harness works and is perfectly suitable for most Canyoneering outings. There are Canyoneering specific harnesses which change the ventral (belay loop) positioning for a horizontal point of connection and they generally have seat protectors built into them to protect your back side while sliding through the sandstone walls. These all work and can be suited to get you started in Canyoneering. One word of caution if you are a climber, don’t take your climbing harness into a canyon if you plan to climb on it again. The sandstone abrades the harnesses and they will eventually wear through. You don’t want to get micro tears (or large tears) in your climbing harness and then take it up on a climb and expect it to hold in place if you take a good fall on it.
Rappel Device — Rappelling devices, also called descenders, are used to attach the rope to your harness (through a carabiner – see below) and slow the rate of descent down while you are rappelling. Canyoneering uses a single rope technique (SRT) as opposed to most climbers who rappel off of pitches using a double strand technique (DRT). Because of this and our ropes are thinner in diameter (see below again), we have specialized rappel devices designed for single strand, thinner diameter rope use. My favorite rappel device as of late is the Imlay Canyon Gear CRITR. Others that you can look into would be the On Rope HooDoo, the SQWUREL by BG Gear, the ATS by Sterling, or the Palikoa series by Glacier Black. You should find one that works for you and your rappelling style and feels easy for you to control and lock off.
Locking Screw Gate Carabiner — Connects your rappel device to your harness. The locking gate matters — this is not a place to cut corners with a standard carabiner. Due to the harsh environment of the sand and water in a slot canyon we opt for a Screw Gate carabiner so that there is less chance of the mechanism of locking jamming or failing to hold – such as with autolocking carabiners when they get filled with sand. Choose a larger style HMS or Pear Shaped Carabiner when purchasing.
Helmet — While not on the original mandatory-six list, and not specifically needed to get through a canyon, it should be an item that you don’t go into a canyon without. People descend canyons all the time without helmets, but the number of times that I have seen someone stand up and hit their helmeted head on a rock or the canyon wall has been enough to make it worth it. I have hit my head with a helmet on several times so hard that it knocked me silly for a minute. Also the issues with water bottles being dropped off of ledges while someone is on rappel or a rock accidentally getting dislodges are frequent. One of our guides had a student dislodge a rock onto them while they were belaying at the bottom and without her helmet, it could have caused some serious damage.
Anchor-Building Gear
This is the gear that scales with the canyon itself — the more rappels in your route, the more of this you need, since some of it gets left behind at each anchor.
Rope — While you are not looking at bringing 1 rope per drop, the bigger the group you are travelling with the more rope you should be considering packing in. It offers you the opportunity to leap frog through rappels instead of waiting around for one rope to be brought forward after each drop.
Rope sizing, length, and diameter all play a role in the selection process as well as the type of rope.
Rope Type: Climbing uses Dynamic ropes and if you go into a climbing store and ask for a rope that is probably what they will sell you. Although Canyoneering is becoming more mainstream lately and some shops are getting on board with the proper equipment. You want to get yourself a good Static rope. This is a rope that has zero to little stretch in it and is much easier and more preferred to rappel on.
Rope Size/Diameter: Your rope is going to be somewhere in the 8mm to 9/9.2mm range for Canyoneering. Remember when I mentioned in the Rappel device section that we are on thinner ropes. Canyoneering we are walking all day long and don’t want to pack a thick heavy rope with us through a canyon. Be aware though that the thinner the rope the faster your rappel is going to be going (especially the closer to the ground you get). This is why you need a rappel device that you can adjust the speed on as we discussed above.
Rope Length: Length wise you can buy all sorts of lengths of ropes. You are going to need a rope that is double the length of the longest rappel in the canyon in order to safely rig the rappel and a retrieval line and have some room for a safety margin. We discuss in our Canyoneering courses how to rig the anchors and the ropes to those anchor for retrieval and the safety set up for emergency back ups. I recommend beginners start with a 200’ rope. This will get you into a lot of different canyons with rappels up to 100’ (having the other half the rope for your retrieval and back up). Always be aware that just like harnesses get beat up, your ropes will too. You need to manage them over the edge and protect them as best you can if you want them to last you a long time. But know that you will eventually get worn out spots in that rope and it will need to be replaced. This is when you can cut that rope at a worn out spot and you now have 2 shorter ropes and you can go buy another 200’ rope and replace it and now you have 3 ropes of varying lengths to take out and use on different drop scenarios.
1″ Tubular Webbing — This is used to build the anchor itself at each rappel station. You’ll need enough for every anchor in the canyon, not just one. The lengths that people carry tend to vary. Some people pack 100’ with them on every trip and just cut off what they need per anchor station. Keep in mind that you won’t need to replace every anchor on every trip depending on which canyons and location you go to. Some canyons that are frequently travelled are maintained much better than others. I prefer to carry several shorter lengths equaling up to about 30’ to 50’ of webbing with me. If you are again in a larger group then each person can carry some of the webbing and break up the weight packed this way.
1” tubular webbing is the preferred webbing style vs. flat webbing. Also keep in mind that the colors you choose are a point of controversy. You should stick with subdued, land based dull colors to leave behind in canyons. Ie. Rust, Tan, Black, sage green.
Quicklink / Rapide — These terms are used interchangeably and mean the same thing. Some people also tend to lean towards a rappel ring, but these can be a bit controversial for the rigging and you need to now how to tie one into an anchor webbing at the proper location. A Quick link is much easer and faster to attach to a piece of webbing once the entire thing is complete.
You will need one of these per anchor in the canyon just in case they need to be replaced or rebuilt. This is the same logic as the webbing. This is the piece that often surprises beginners doing their first multi-rappel canyon — the gear list isn’t fixed, it scales with the route.
These are the mandatory necessary items that need to be packed, planned, prepped and carried into a canyon when there is any sort of Rappel being done. There are plenty of other pieces of gear out there that make the canyon a much more enjoyable trip and safer, but without any one of these pieces of gear, the canyon may potentially be a no go.
Once you know what you need, the next question is where to get it – North Wash Outfitters carries what we recommend for exactly this kind of route.
Do You Want to get a visual and See It In Action?
A quick video recap of what is discussed:
For a deeper walkthrough of each of these items, here’s the longer version:
Rappel Device Discussion: