Canyon Gear for Wet Canyons

All right now we got our props we can start uh You've never canyoned before which was me two days ago Uh, there's a lot of interesting gear I didn't even know they wore wetsuits. Okay Glad we had one though But we're going to talk about from head to toe what you are going to need if you're ever going to go canyon This will be a great video for people who've never done this before Um, and it might be helpful for people who have when we have the newest and latest and reddest tools sponsor me and do this so Yeah, we're going to talk about all this brent's just a wealth of knowledge and he's going to just firehose a bunch of information to You which is going to be great before you do your first canyon Welcome back, um brent roth again here in the canyon gear room and i'm going to talk about some personal canyon gear This is another video in our series On how not to there is a canyon playlist So we're going to try to put out more videos based on information and stuff. You guys want to see so Make sure you go to the playlist on youtube. It's literally all the categories are based on the different sports We're doing so we just started a new one. So maybe you'll find something else to get into like canyoning Uh, shall we get started? You uh, you done playing with your socks there, bud? Oh, man, you're you're you're not gonna be good at big wall and if you drop things man All right, we're gonna Start this, uh, basic like head to toe thing. I thought it'd be a good way to put these pieces together So this is a basic climbing helmet. Nothing special about it. Um I like the ones with the brim on it It does help keep water out of your eyes when it's pouring down on the top of your head um Key thing you want to add to it is a whistle. It's very important to have a whistle in a canyon This is one of our primary means of communication Um, especially if you need help or something like that. This is going to be louder in a canyon than what you can Uh talk and scream so that's the only thing i've done to this helmet is added a whistle So basic climbing helmet will work, okay, so you just clip it onto the end there That's the way I do it. Some people just use a small piece of string. Um, or paracord if you have any of that, right? You don't have any paracord. No, no, none. Not at all. I barely have any um, it's gonna end up look like spider-man So, what do you what's the helmet for for things hitting you are you hitting things? That's a great question. Helmets are all designed for different stuff Yeah so, um Sometimes I get I have gotten the question because I do a lot of whitewater stuff like whitewater kayaking and rafting And the helmets look the same but they're not the same whitewater helmets are designed for low speed multiple impacts So when i'm upside down going down a river and hitting rock after rock after rock, I don't want it to sounds fun explode like a bike helmet will These helmets are designed and tested to take An object that's falling and hitting me in the head So it could be a little bit higher speed they're not single impact meaning it'll take more than one hit so Consider canning more of a mountaineering sport than it is a whitewater sport and that leans me towards using this helmet. There is Very few helmets out there that carry certifications in both worlds, but they're just ridiculously expensive and heavy. I don't like heavy So moving on down from my head i'm gonna go into the body. So wetsuits. This is another thing that's talked about often um, I use a Four three seam sealed wetsuit what I really like about this material is it's super stretchy. Wow So, uh, I can move around in this wetsuit really really really well how it keeps me warm is there is some fleece insulation on the inside here Which is pretty sweet. Um And it helps keep me warm by keeping water in so the seam sealed means that every seam Is got some type of sealant on it on the inside and outside So the inside tapes, uh seams are taped just like your gore-tex jacket or something and the outside is glued So what this is doing is either preventing water from getting in Um for a while, but once it gets in it helps keep it there because that insulated warm water is what keeps me warm So that's how the technology of this works without a lot of bulk. Yeah, I was super comfortable when we were canyoning I hate cold water, right? Yeah So there is a downside to that and i'll get the downside to this particular style wetsuit and i'll get to that in a second Here is a canyoning wetsuit Um, it's a thicker material. This is not a canyoning wetsuit. No, this is a surfing wetsuit. Okay, okay I use it for canyoning and um More and more people are using it for canyoning because this is usually what's available I can go into a store and find on a rack. Yeah. Yeah these you need to order usually come from europe or new zealand There's a great locally owned canyon shop in new zealand Sells these sealand wetsuits and this one was built from the ground up for canyoning. It has more durable outside materials This is like a cordura on top of the neoprene You can see i've got a couple of battle wounds here in this one It doesn't take much to pierce this so you do need to be careful with it getting caught on sticks Usually on the hike in or the hike out This is much more durable. This is also thicker neoprene So this is five mils, but it is not as stretchy like this is a little bit harder to move in But because this is five millimeters On the jacket and then i'm going to put this piece On my lower body, which just has another fleece. This is inside out so you can see the inside So this is the fleece on the inside And when I stack these two pieces together This is gonna have this is what I wore. Uh the other day. This is the one that ryan was wearing It was pretty nice. So when I put this together, you can see i'm gonna have 10 millimeters of neoprene on my core area This does two things for me it can keep me a little bit warmer because it's more insulation But what it does is provide me more flotation. So i've got 10 millimeters of neoprene here. I only have four here More neoprene equals more flotation. So what I need to be careful of is that if I am doing High water swift water canyons with a lot of swimming or even flat long pools And I have an injury that i'm not able to swim on my own Power it'd be nice if I can float long enough for my buddies to come and get me and float me across the pool So I add on A jacket that looks like this One it gives me a great Ab look in the canyon, uh, which is really important. You got to look good while you're doing things You look like you're part of the SWAT team when you're wearing it but this gives me a More flotation when i'm wearing this wetsuit that doesn't so that's really important to me. I am not a good swimmer I'm an excellent floater and I highly recommend people just trying it. This is super chill Floating your way down a canyon, but you don't stop here. No, I don't stop here. Where do you this? This is just the muscles But this is this is where you get your style points. Um, it's not bulletproof as you can see um The jacket is for that. But anyway, yeah, you got to look good while you're moving down a canyon So we won't talk anymore about that. That was supposed to be a secret Uh and then move it all the way down so neoprene socks neoprene socks are um Are pretty vile keep your feet warm again This is a good example of when I say seam sealed of what i'm talking about So you can see this sock on the outside. It's got this silicone over the top of the seam and on the inside It's sealed. So this sock will hold water in it until it gets a hole in it again So water goes in it heats up And this is why I don't have cold feet in a canyon Yeah, how did it feel walking in these right and you made a comment about this Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, not that bad. We hiked in these and yeah, I hiked in them I did not wear I did not hike in the wetsuit. I hiked in just these These and then the shoes we're going to show you so let's move on to the shoes Here you've got one of the more common shoes There's a couple other brand names that do come from europe. These are getting harder and harder to find What is super key with these is they do have this is um 5 10 stealth rubber on the bottom um So it's very quiet. Uh, you can't see anybody coming this red just kind of disappears Is that the stealth? Yeah, it's very stealthy. Um, tell me about the color I thought the color was interesting when you told me about why it's red somebody told me that They moved to this color because a lot of southwest canyons were complaining about their shoes getting stained red They used to have white and some other colors when you when you run canyons in red Dirt and sand they turn red. So they just decided well if we make a red shoe, it'll hide Um the dirt that's on it again. It's about looking good, but not about performance But yes, I was I was super happy. So I just got these shoes. I learned that gear Is worth have the right gear? And so these are brand new and then these are not this is uh I've done I did two seasons in these so the i'm not using these fully this season But this is only two seasons old and you can see they do have they do have some problems That I think they need to work out Rope on rope. Yep. Yep I replaced the laces with some paracord Um, so they're not perfect but running canyons as you can see is very very very very tough on gear um this these often shred These do not drain water and a lot of people complain it's like all these shoes They don't drain water and I feel like i'm walking around with all this extra weight Again, if you're going back to what I told you about the wetsuit If water is flushing in and out of this all day long and I don't have a sock that's holding water I'm gonna end up with cold feet no matter how thick of neoprene I put on there if that water's constantly flushing it out So I like the fact that they hold water That water will stay in there and my feet warm up and by the end of the day Usually my feet are almost like too warm So and I felt like the rubber kept me on the rock super good enough super good enough. Yep. Yeah. Yep So those are the canyoning shoes um going into I didn't wear gloves. Why did you some of you guys? What's that? I didn't wear gloves. Um, it's preference. It's a preference. Is it for belaying or for just grabbing stuff? Just grabbing stuff. Um, it's nice when you're bushwhacking There's a lot of pokey things out there that so sometimes i'll hike in or out with the gloves on I've just started using them for a long time I didn't wear gloves because I think well how you repel without wearing gloves like well, we have water cooled systems Um, so we're repelling a waterfall and that water's constantly running down that rope It's not going to heat up. Um, but it's still give you some abrasion over time I've done a canyon eight hour canyon and it's like yeah, it's starting to get a little sore But what you got to think about with gloves kind of like with the other stuff There's a theme here that if this is holding water in them and they're not they don't ever dry out and they're just constantly Cold it's gonna make my hands cold So sometimes not wearing gloves and I can flick the water off when i'm walking and I can get the water off So now I don't have the wind blowing on my hands making my wet hands even more cold So depends on what's going on. I may or may not wear the gloves and that's why just standard climbing gloves a lot of them have these little Carabiners holes i'll put them back on my harness and not wear them Um hoods so some Wetsuits have a hood in it. I love this. I love that. Yep. Yep this can make a difference with when you're repelling in a waterfall having Something to prevent the water from going down the back of your neck and you can imagine Having some water just fire hose down. That's about 40 degrees isn't going to feel so good So if you don't have a built-in hood Um, I bought one like this and I actually don't tuck it in I wear it on the outside So water hits the back of my hood and stays on the outside And that's how again I prevent that flushing from going through my wetsuit if i'm really hot all I gotta do is lay my back on a waterfall and take the hood off and You cool down real quick so I like having a detached hood because for hot days and Later summer when it is warm I can get rid of it and it's just another bulky item. I don't need around my neck So that is all the personal gear if you got any more questions or debates about like what you've seen here or other things you've seen please post in the comments below and we'll try to address them as As much as we can something. Uh, I saw rachel doing our caving stuff was the boot dryer so I've never seen these before so I thought this was interesting if you're used to water and stuff like That's pretty neat and it just blows air pretty much in there so That's cool. What's the plastic for? Uh, so that's super high tech so I can either i'm just plugging this up I can put my gloves on here. Oh I can put Gotcha on there Oh, okay. Cool. So the secret to keeping neoprene stuff from really getting smelly is getting it really dry Gotcha, if any of this stuff is damp and you ball it up and put it away when you pull it out It is going to stink So there's some products on the market to help remove that smell that's an enzyme stuff you can get but I just Dry my stuff out as as good as I can. My shoes actually still smell new Do you also have something like that for your wetsuit? You're showing me I do you want to see the wetsuit? Yeah, so when i'm doing multi day Trips like in canada. We did six candies in seven days. It was back to back to back and it was on The weather wasn't super warm Um, I like putting on a dry wetsuit in the morning sounds kind of strange but I found this online It's made by underwater kinetics for drying suits. So this is like a big hanger holds the shoulders open It's got a fan in it. So just blows air through the inside through From the neck and down through the wetsuit and I never put on a cold damp wetsuit Cool, nice being comfortable is key. So it looks like the depends adult diapers company just started making harnesses Why do your harnesses have a Such a big butt on them. Well, that's a great question climbing harnesses All harnesses have leg loops, right? So you notice that we did a lot of sliding and maneuvers on our butt Repelling in a slippery wet waterfall does not have to look graceful and a lot of times doesn't this is easier to get down and slide That's why the canadian wetsuits have that earlier fabric on there and the added rubber so If this is vital to support my life, I don't want to just damage it by shredding it on rocks So we add this protector and you can see this same material haul bags are made out of Probably dirt probably. Yeah, not dirt thing. But um, yeah, it's just a lot of times just uh pvc Yeah, some type of material you can see it's like, you know Put some wear and tear on this and if I didn't have this on the bottoms half of my leg loops would be completely shredded Uh, you can see even my hardware starting to get in in highlighting this will get worn out a lot because we're scooting on the line Yeah, there you go. Maybe you should put one of these you can buy them So this is one that I just bought and I added it to this lightweight harness Then we'll look really cool out there with the big green diaper. Yeah, and it makes sense Yeah, put a little poo mark on it. Yeah, this is really easy to poop while you're wearing your harness like a big old harness Yeah, it's like, you know the horses that you know, they're using the streets. They have that little bucket anyway um So other stuff on the about the harness that makes it particularly different is the main attachment point So these are similar to caving. So notice I don't have two loops in a belay loop like you would have on a climbing. Yeah um Caving and canning harnesses have a loop that looks like this Sometimes a this harness will be joined with a carabiner called an omni lock and that becomes your master point Those are nice half circle carabiners. Yeah the half circle carabiner um And you can move your equipment around on that because I can open that But the downside it is a hard attachment point and there's some questions and debates on there if you have put it in the comments Um, but it's the orientation of this. So when I put put a repel device on here Do you have enough repel devices to give us an example? I notice it. I took pause to figure out which one. Yeah He uh, he's not quite sure how to go down things Because he's got so many options over here I'm an options kind of guy Uh, so when I put the device on there, it's orientated correctly without adding in any of the carabiners If I put this on my belay loop, it would be sideways I've seen people do that with like an atc before and like, okay Have you ever seen anybody, you know load it up because they flip it in the belay loop and it's yeah Yeah So, um another thing it's just easier. This is one attachment point and I can put other things on there like my ascender and my Lanyard device and we're not going to go into like all the gear that goes into Doing canyons, but uh, yeah, and by the way, this is for wet canyons Yes, there's you do not need all this Until you get some training and you get into like doing a lot of rigging and leading Um, this is what when I take somebody down a canyon um, it'll just be a nice simple harness with A repel device on it So this is the bare minimum That you're gonna need Um is I got a butt protector nice lightweight harness and then this is important. How'd you get the ring on there? Oh, check this out Okay Gotcha. So I could I could connect this straight to This but I like having the ring separate. It just keeps. Yeah, I like it too. And this your your personal anchors yeah, so this is your personal anchor now, what's Key about these as I did tie these from a dynamic rope Um, there are several on the market you can buy um, but I I do Recommend using a dynamic one. Aren't you getting run a test on something like this? I don't know if somebody just had a drop tower. I mean If we knew anybody it'd be really cool to know what the difference is would be if a rope that short makes a difference. Yeah So but it is important because one of the first things you do when you get to an anchor is connect to it Especially when you're standing on slippery A slippery edge like a waterfall and then I load up my repel vise Make sure the anchor and i'm connected and done all that right load it And then once I know i'm safe on repel then I can remove this All right have a much and this goes on over our wetsuits. So yeah, you're all geared up when you're going down a canyon I actually was surprised how little I was getting caught on stuff when I was sliding down stuff Yeah, it's not as much as you as you make Cool so you got your harness Got your gear now I carried a backpack what backpack Do you like because it seemed like the same kind of backpack I had for? Caving where it had like the mesh brain. Yep and durable So it's got a lot of holes in yours. Yeah It's it's uh, it's a it's the one you take to church it's holy um Wow, you tried really the canyon church. I don't know you tried really hard on that one. Ryan's big on dad jokes um yeah, so it's the same same kind of material that the the Butt protectors are made out of it's very durable. This one has this is my third season on this bag And you see we toss them drag them. Uh, it gets a beating Yeah, it they last really well, so I highly recommend Getting a caving or bag like this what's really nice Is the holes allow water to drain but this water doesn't this material doesn't absorb water So if i'm using my regular hiking backpack Or some southwest canning bags are made out of cordura They're super durable for being dragged across sandstone and stuff like that But that cordura material does hold and retain water So the longer you're in the water the heavier it's going to be and the more work you have to do throughout the day so That's why I prefer this one. I mostly do wet canyons. They do come in different sizes. This is a This is a 35 somewhere So All right. So we talked about surfer stuff climbing stuff Uh, where do you buy this stuff? There's a canyon website specifically that has everything you need uh, there is there's uh Canyon zone in new zealand is a good place to get he's really good at getting stuff here on time We do have a local guy in portland that made me this bag We know your lovely yeah, this is uh, this was a great surprise I ordered a bag from he was doing a fundraiser event and I was like He's like what color and I said batman And this is what I got so, uh norix in portland Makes backpacks canyoning backpacks. He makes rope bags. He makes a lot of really cool gear and uh, he's a local guy So support your local local cool community. We'll put those links in the description on where this stuff goes Yep, where you can get it. So, um, i'm going to show you a couple things that we I showed you the rope bag. There's sometimes we use a mesh bag Uh, and not all bags have flotation and since we're in a wet environment with deep water pools I want to make sure everything's float. So i'll show you Um, I got a mesh bag over here And so I take this mesh bag And uh, I you know, just take a piece of foam and I add it in there In the bottom and put a bigger one if I want to use this as a rope bag But it's got to float. Wait, is that enough? This is not probably not enough for this but it's just you know I can just add some foam to this and then attach it somehow So this is how i've made some of my own little rope bags with whatever mesh bag I got Oh, that's a for a rope bag. Yeah, because this will be separate. You'll toss this down Okay, you don't want it sinking and I don't want to lose my rope. I don't want it to sink. Yeah Yeah, can you hold that for me? Thanks, buddy Um other things that I can use This is a very popular, uh item they call it referred to as a keg Um, it is just a waterproof food grade container that isn't very expensive. Um a few We use this in the cave the caves I did yep. Yep. Um other Other areas use it. Oh, that's a cool sticker weird. I don't know the chances of that being in there um And yeah, so they work really well Um, it's a hard plastic. So it it if you pad stuff like you put your electronics or cell phone in here Uh, but you also got to remember anything that I take in a canyon still can get wet Especially if ryan's in charge of closing it again. Yes. Yes It has to be closed Um, so this is one item that's very popular. They come in two different sizes There's a tall double size this and this is the air in this enough to keep your bag floating. Absolutely So this is often where people will say hey, did you put any flotation in the bag? This is kind of what they're meaning. So if I put stuff in here Maybe we'll go over that a little bit later If you want to know what it is, I put it in here and take him down a canyon So like the canyon 10 essentials, um, make a comment. We'll get into that this goes in the bag And now when it's closed my bag has flotation but if my bag comes open and that comes out I don't have flotation. So I make a little leash on here and I clip this to the bag That way it's got some flotation somewhere This is another option. I'm a huge fan of these because i'm a rafter Voters love these are called watershed. It's a watershed bag took me a minute to figure out how to open it Yeah, it is. It is just it's an industrial size ziploc bag So you just press this together like that and this is these bags are actually rated to be submersible But I would clip it together if this rolls down Do you leave air in there on purpose I did this time Just so it looks like there's stuff in it the size of the bag But yeah What I like about this is I can control the size of the bag I can squeeze all that air out and make it small and condensed if I don't have a lot of stuff Or I can fill this bag if I want to so they make a lot of different sizes shapes of this bag A big fan of it, but this is a lot of buoyancy and flotation So I show us how to open it since that was something I wish I knew When I was trying to get my snickers out So it's crazy that when you buy stuff if you just look and read the instructions That's why they'll show you that it just does this s-bend and it comes open really easy He makes that look easier than it really is. Why is there melted snickers in my dry bag? Oh, sorry Why? Anyway, so we're going to add stuff like this to our bag or anything that we have that doesn't float this bag May or may not be on my person So it's really important to remember that flotation that goes in your rope bag is for the rope Flotation that goes in your backpack is for your backpack I still need flotation for my body of whatever that is So I highly recommend you figure out what works for you And make sure all your stuff floats on its own go out and float test it Chuck it in a pool of water if it's valuable to you You're going to want to have it float so you can get it back another Essential for your canyon trip. Oh, everybody's got to have a canyon kitty um Your comments are really going to steer how this new how not to canyon playlist is going to go This is my first trip to brent's and so We're kind of just popping out a bunch of videos that we think are going to be the most useful we did some forces in a canyon on a Uh, what's your what's your slow zipline called a guided repel guided repel It's got to repel my first trip in a canyon. Just the overall experience of what it's like to do at least a wet canyon and uh gear so I think we did a how not to poop in a canyon, but we're not quite sure if it turned out Is that why that is that not snickers in my bag? Uh ryan. Oh ryan You just don't look like you're very into this outro So if there's some other things you'd like to see uh questions, uh, I see a lot of questions and Debates come up in canyon forums and stuff. So post in the comments. Uh, send ryan an email. He loves Getting emails from everybody. Uh, and my email is right here. It'll be your email Email me here Yeah, ask us and then we want to know what you want to know and then we'll try to find the best person that has The best answer for you. Um, I don't know everything. I know a lot I have a lot of stuff, but I also work in a very small area of canyoning canyoning is a broad community and two different environments so maybe we'll get a southwest canyoning professional type person to chime in and Maybe they'll want to share some gear. So yeah put it in the comments and contact ryan Brent brent will probably come down to the how not to lab. We'll break some stuff. He'll be Testing forces here and then i'll be testing that Configuration in the lab and sometimes maybe he'll come down and we'll do that. So We're in washington state in case you're wondering and i'm based or the lab is based out of california. I'm a moving target uh Hit the subscribe button so you can catch the stuff we're putting out hit the like button to help the algorithm and leave a comment So we know what you want. Thanks for watching the end. Cheers