I'd Rather Be Canyoneering
Geek out about the awesome sport of canyoneering! Whether your relationship with canyoneering is exciting and new or tried and true, we've got you covered. We'll be exploring a new topic each month. So come drop in with us!
I'd Rather Be Canyoneering
Canyon Speed Dating
Canyoneering with different people/groups is exciting, refreshing, fun, informative and sometimes difficult to navigate, just like dating. We discuss our recent experiences branching out from our core group and what we have learned that could help you along the way.
Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us. I'm Katie
Carma:and I'm Carma and you're listening to, I'd rather be canyoneering.
Katie:We're best friends who totally geek out about canyon rigging and beautifully slot canyons. Basically we'd always rather be canyoneering. But when we can't, we spend every spare minute, we have talking about it.
Carma:This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Please seek professional instruction and practice technical skills in a controlled environment before entering slot canyons. Your safety is entirely your own responsibility.
Katie:Welcome to our canyon crew! hey everyone, hope you all had an awesome summer. We've been out playing in the canyons and on backpacking trips with friends and family. Hopefully you've all had a chance to get out and adventure some too. After this last season, we have really had a chance to go out there and kick it with a whole lot of really rad groups and get to know a lot more canyoneers. This episode, we're going to focus on what it's like to go out and join a new group where maybe you only know one person in the group, or maybe you don't know anybody. That's a totally new experience for us, and so we're going to tell you a little bit about what that's like, what different things come up, as challenges and what's really fun about doing that.
Carma:Yeah. You can learn a lot seeing how other groups roll. And the nice thing about it is you can, choose to take away from it, the stuff that you really like. And if there's something you didn't love, you just leave it behind, you know? And also expanding your group of canyoneering friends is awesome. It means you get to do more canyons in more places. When we started out canyoneering, we were only going with a small group of friends, mostly these were buddies. We had climbed and adventured with a lot plus an occasional add on to, of a friend to fill out a group. But we were going with people that we had seen in action in a lot of different situations. So high levels of trust already established, with these friends and we knew their comfort levels and their styles and that we already liked hanging out with them.
Katie:This episode is not so much on skill level competency as it is on when you've already decided that the group. is proficient enough to go with. And now there's just kind of some nuances within there. So like we were saying, Carmen, I had a really well established team and we knew everyone's abilities, capabilities. But now we live in different areas. So I'm up in salt Lake, Karma's down in St. George. We obviously can't go on every single Canyon trip together and.
Carma:even though we try.
Katie:Right?
Carma:So when you have someone that's your leading buddy, you know, where we're usually the bread of the sandwich, you know, of the rest of the group where one of us is usually the first and one of us is usually the last. And we're used to doing those roles we know each other really well. We know what to expect the other person is going to do.
Katie:To me, it feels like a soccer team. Like, Oh yeah, I know where you're going to kick the ball. Like I know if I'm on the post, you're going to kick it to me. You know?
Carma:I can anticipate it, which is really useful.
Katie:It's definitely a team sport.
Carma:It is a team sport and it does help in a lot of situations in the canyon, if you can anticipate. what the other person wants or is trying to communicate. That makes me think of, uh, it was Stuart Falls when the log was bottom belaying me. So our rope, the very end of it had just barely gotten snagged on this log and it was giving me a fireman belay and I couldn't keep going down the rope. Katie just watching me try to pull on the rope. She knew exactly what I needed when I needed it. I looked down, I saw her running over and I was like, Oh, perfect. I know Katie understands what needs to happen to fix this situation. I was so relieved, I wasn't even, necessarily trying to signal to you, but you knew from, my body language and what I was doing and immediately went to fix the situation anyway, so things like that, it's really nice to have someone that You know what they're going to do.
Katie:I usually go with a group where I at least know one person in the group and that's traditionally been kind of a trump card for me, where if I'm not comfortable with something I'm seeing or the rigging or something, then I have somebody that I can talk to and kind of, if I choose to rig it differently for myself, then I have a buddy who can partner check me before I go down and I just really feel free To be able to move within the group and I can still make personal decisions for myself..
Carma:but Katie, you went with a group where you didn't know anyone in the group. What was that like?
Katie:Yeah. I did that in the Seattle rendezvous and I had been signing up for the canyons based on the canyons that I wanted to do. And then I was looking for somebody that I knew in each of the groups. And I knew I'd have a good time. I at least have one friend in the canyon. But one night I got home kind of late from work and All of my friends had signed up for canyons already that were full, and so I didn't have the option to go with somebody that I knew. So I Picked by the canyons that I was most excited to do and then I read the leader bios the Mountaineers and the Pacific Northwest had put together leader bios You could read up on what their experience was like and I had pictures, knew who I was looking for, so I thought that was really well done, and it took a lot of the guesswork out for me, and I really appreciated that they did that.
Carma:that's awesome
Katie:And then I kind of asked around. I asked some of my friends from the PNW if they knew those particular leaders, and if they thought I'd have a good time with them, and they all vouched for them and said, oh yeah, they're solid, and you're gonna have a good time. So, I felt pretty good about it. but still just a touch nervous. So I made sure that I met them the night before I did the canyon with them. I kind of sought out somebody who knew who they were and can you introduce to these guys and I just want to see, what they're like And when I met them, they had actually had kind of a rough day in their canyon that day. And I was going to go with them the day. And so when I met them, they didn't seem like super energetic. I was like, well, I'm going to go, but I'm not sure if I'm going to have a good time or not. We'll see, you know. And then, the next day everybody had had a good night's sleep and we got to the canyon and they ended up being hilarious. Like as soon as their feet touched the water, they were stoked and you could tell the excitement was back. And, we just had a blast. they were playful. They were everything I was hoping for in the group. So it's kind of tricky because, you can look up their beta, but you don't know if that's everything about them and you can meet them in person and they might, be tired that day and totally stoke the next, you can never do it perfectly, but I felt like I was at least going in with my eyes open and kind of knowing what I was getting into and I felt good about it and it was a great time.
Carma:you were in a completely different environment. Did you see anything cool?
Katie:Yeah, actually. A lot of the ropes were different, out there. It's really important that things don't sink into the water. And so not only do you have rope bags that float, but you also have ropes that float. And That actually makes me think of gear compatibility issues that came out there a little bit Everybody's got different devices that are their favorites and they probably work really well with their basic setups. Whether they have a rugged old desert rope that is totally gnarred and rides really slow. Or some people had like. Brand new glacier black ropes that float on the top of the water and they are really slick and fast. And one of the canyons that we went into, I noticed that somebody was going to ride down on a piranha. And to me, I thought if I was riding that, that might go a little fast on some of the slick ropes that I'd seen the day before.
Carma:Mm hmm.
Katie:I kind of talked to the trip leaders is like, Oh, do you know? I have an extra hoodoo, like maybe this would work better for this person. And, when I offered it to him, he actually was super hesitant to take something new and untried down the Canyon. And that makes total sense. Right.
Carma:Yeah.
Katie:And so we did offer bottom belays. and that was nice to have on the first repels. I still think that the person in my group ended up going a little faster than he wanted to. And so, it just made me think, as you're going down these canyons, even though somebody said, oh yeah, I brought a rope that's this many feet long, you may come up to ropes that are faster or slower than what you're used to, and choosing that correct compatibility might just be a little bit nuanced. And maybe you do want to ask for a bottom belay, or for the person who went too fast, maybe if I had offered to like hang out with him so that I could double check the hoodoo and he'd feel comfortable, something I thought of later was maybe there was somebody else with a hoodoo that could have gone down with that person and helped them like double check it every time that it was right so that they would feel comfortable. Those are just kind of some of the ideas that I had so that nobody got surprised by compatibility between belay devices and unfamiliar ropes.
Carma:Right. When you don't know the rope, you don't know how it feels in your specific device. So, sometimes it's just someone has a new one. New ropes are slick. They just ride fast. And Sometimes you can just tell because it's shiny and it's not like all fuzzy yet.
Katie:Feels smooth, yeah.
Carma:It feels smooth. So then you can kind of predict like, Oh, I might go a little faster. I'm going to want to put a little bit more friction. Also sometimes people are used to doing a lot of things double stranded and if they switch it up and they just haven't experienced what it feels like to ride their device single stranded, then. Yeah. Sometimes they can, uh, get a little bit more of a wild ride than they were expecting or wanted to get.
Katie:And when you put a group together, you might see a lot of different gear coming to the table that might not be. As compatible as you might expect.
Carma:Or just, some adjustments need to be made, but. That can surprise people when they're not expecting it,
Katie:Karma, what's surprised you in the groups that you've gone with that haven't been your normal groups? Anything?
Carma:Yeah, I've been surprised sometimes about the differences in expectations of what gear everyone's supposed to bring. Like what everyone considers is standard personal gear.
Katie:What was missing?
Carma:Well, one time I went with a group, just me and a friend joined up with a bunch of people and it turned out that almost nobody in the group had a tether or a personal anchor system. So we were doing this Canyon where the first repel was probably about 75 feet straight down and it was a wet, splashy Canyon. And so it was slippery and we were anchored off of a tree and then the rappel station was like sloped and then dropped off. So in order to grab the rope to put your rappel device on, you needed to be standing in kind of a precarious, slippery spot. And since I was one of the few people who had. A personal anchor system or a tether. I was able to clip into the anchor and then I worked as the anchor manager and I would Pull the repel rope back far enough away from the slippery edge for everyone to rig on. So we were able to work around it because we had at least two or three personal anchor systems in the group, but it definitely wasn't. What I was expecting and not the way I would have preferred to do it. So by the time I realized that the personal anchor systems were missing, we were already at the first repel. You know, we weren't anywhere close to the cars or the trailhead.
Katie:If you didn't bring the gear, you can't discuss bringing it or not bringing it. If you just don't have it
Carma:Yeah. Something that I do now to mitigate that when I'm going with new groups is that I ask more specific questions. So instead of asking someone I don't know if they have all of their own personal gear, I ask them, do you have a harness, a personal anchor system, a repel device, a locking carabiner? I'm just very specific. about what I'm asking ahead of time. And then I let them know I have extras of these items. So if they look at that list and they're like, what is that? You know, then they have this opportunity to be like, oh, can I borrow your extra one? Because I've already told them I have an extra one and I'm willing to loan it to them. I just don't assume anymore that when I say, all of your own personal gear, that that means the same thing to them as it means to me. Because I've had that experience of showing up and realizing it didn't mean the same thing.
Katie:Yeah
Carma:Now on the other hand, this group was excellent at giving bottom belays and communicating between the belayer and the repeller. So that was something positive I took away from that same experience too. Like I had never seen a group be so consistent with that before. So something, you know, I learned from them, even though there was this other thing that I didn't love
Katie:yeah, awesome. Anything else? I mean, I'm sure you've gone with different people who had different perspectives than you had on probably a variety of things.
Carma:I definitely have run into having different perspectives about what is okay to use in the canyon as far as like drugs or alcohol and whether people are comfortable with people using something pre canyon or mid canyon as opposed to post canyon. The people that I'm, go with are fine with whatever somebody wants to use post canyon. but not comfortable with people using things pre canyon or mid canyon. Just because... You really have to have your mental state clear when you're canyoneering, and that can be a safety issue for you and for the group as a whole.
Katie:Yeah, I could see how that could come up with alcohol, marijuana, medicine, prescriptions. Any of that could definitely come up be something to talk about. Or, hopefully it wouldn't be a surprise, but I could definitely see how that could happen too.
Carma:Yeah, you know, in my case, it definitely was, and I honestly think most of the time that this is going to come up, it will be a surprise, and when you get there and somebody pulls something out, like, you really don't know their history. You don't know if they're using it for medical reasons or if it's recreational. And it's just something, like you'll probably have to address on the fly with the group.
Katie:Yeah, that makes sense. You don't know if that's like their normal dosage, or if they're upping it, or if then it becomes a sharing thing. And you'd kind of need to be able to address it right there and say, Hey guys, do you want to wait until the end of the Canyon for that? That'd be great.
Carma:Right.
Katie:And then maybe someone has the opportunity to tell you more about their history if they're willing to share. And if not, you have the choice to go or not go still.
Carma:Yeah, definitely.
Katie:Something else I wanted to share with you was that it was really exciting to be able to go into new canyons that I wasn't familiar with and also that had very little beta available. In the Pacific Northwest, a lot of these canyons are relatively new and some of the people I got to go with were literally people who had been on the first descents of these canyons and That was really fun. There's this part of me that definitely wants to know all the beta before I go and wants to know every little detail so I can be completely prepared. But with some of these canyons, there wasn't a list of Repel 1, Repel 2, and Rebellay here and do this there. So when I got to those types of canyons, I was really excited and I knew somebody who was on the trip who I knew was great at researching canyons. I really trusted them to lead that canyon. And even though I basically just look up the maps and know where the exits were, I had, that type of intel. Other than that, I had friends that were saying, Hey, on this next rappel, you're going to go around the corner. There's going to be a set of bolts. Don't rappel past them. We need to re belay there. And here we go. And to me, that was really. fun. There was one canyon where it was such an adventure because I knew that more than three of the people were completely solid on the canyon and I got to go into it not knowing what was around every corner and it was magical. I went down this canyon and I went into this room called the rain room and I had seen no pictures of it and I just got to be amazed and It was like a first descent is how it felt for me. And that was such a cool gift that those friends gave to me to be able to explore something that's not super well known and to just feel the magic of that exploration and not knowing what's around the next corner. It was awesome.
Carma:Yeah, that is really cool. I've had kind of similar experiences, out here in St. George that I've been lucky enough to know a few people who would take me down some of the show, don't tell canyons in the area where, yeah, you're going in. You don't have a list of all the repels or exactly how the approach goes. And so you do get to see it with fresh eyes. You haven't watched three YouTube videos of it already. And the awesome thing about that is, getting to know, these other canyons that aren't just listed online for everyone to see. And I think If you're going to do that, you need to have trust built with the people that are taking down. Because when you can't find all the information for yourself, it comes down to, do I trust the person who's taking me to lead me safely down this canyon? And luckily I have gotten to do that, where the person who was taking me had done that canyon many times, and just had a lot of experience in general. So I trusted them to take me. It's a fun way to learn about some hidden treasures.
Katie:And I still, in that situation, prefer, there's at least two people that know all the ins and outs and exit routes. And like in my case, there was three, four, five. And I like that because then if that trip leader got hurt, there's not only one person who knows the beta, but there's a couple, there's backup. So that's kind of one of my fail safes. That, I like to have in place when I am doing a show don't tell or a non published beta type canyon
Carma:yeah.
Katie:I did want to share one really good piece of advice that my husband sent me off to Seattle with, he said, I know you're going with a lot of people and you're excited to learn a lot in a different environment and also just check the hubris. of the group. Hubris refers to, being overly confident and he said, make sure that you are solid and you are comfortable with everything that you're doing. And I thought that would be really easy advice to follow. I was like, Oh yeah, I always double check myself. I know I don't go down anything I don't think is safe. And yet. There was a moment where maybe I wasn't, as spot on with that as I should have been. And I just want to share a quick story because you don't think that you'll get caught in this hubris trap or in the guide halo or in any of that. But I was doing a canyon. And, we had been checking the depth for jumps and we're coming up to what was going to be a jump and a couple of us had goggles. I had gone over with one other Canyon year to set up the repel. I was going to repel down. do the depth check with my goggles, and then everybody else was going to do the jump. So they all stayed back on this kind of ledge over by a diving board where they were all going to go, and we were around kind of a different area, kind of in the woods a little bit. And, I got up to the spot and just the way that we were on a kind of a small ledge, I was doing the setup of And I did, an EMO and the person came up behind me and said, Oh, you know what? I don't know how to release that. And this is a blind repel here. so what should we do? So I said, well, what releasable rigging do you know? And she said, well, I can do an eight block with a braid. And I said, well, I don't know how to double check that. Um, huh. What do we do?
Carma:Yeah,
Katie:So I decided that it was better that I go down and she'd be able to release me. So I took a look at it and the friction was normal, same as how I would set up the friction on it. And then it was locked off through the small hole, which I had seen online before. And then it was just the braid and the safety that I didn't really know. So I did a pole test and it looked good. And so I went down on it and everything was great. I did the depth check, everyone did their jumps. Later down the canyon, I found out that... That was actually the first time that she had rigged it for other people. She had just learned it the night before.
Carma:Oh,
Katie:And that was a little bit unnerving for me because that's just not how I roll. I don't have anybody go down on something that I haven't done, a dozen times or more and had double checked. And so I kind of felt silly having gone down on something that I actually couldn't double check. I felt silly that I hadn't asked somebody from, you know, way back over there to come over and look at it. Looking back, I just should have given her my goggles and sent her down first. Um, but yeah, I think I did fall into that hubris of, Oh yeah, this person seems confident in what they're doing. And so, uh, yeah, I'm good with it.
Carma:Right, and you just don't know when you haven't met the person before if they're confident in what they're doing, when they learned it, or how many times they've used it.
Katie:And I didn't ask her how many times she tidied
Carma:right. And. That kind of reminds me of a parallel with nursing. So after I had become an experienced nurse, I trained other nurses and the nurses that made me the most nervous to train were the nurses who were overconfident. So like they learned something new and then they'd want to jump right in on a live patient and start doing the procedure before they had demonstrated to me that they I really knew all the steps and how to keep it sterile, you know, and so the nurses that I trained or helped co train who were overconfident, I worried that they were going to go into a patient's room without any supervision and just start doing a procedure that they hadn't really shown competence to do, whereas the nurses who were not overconfident, they would ask a lot of questions. So they'd learn something new and then they'd want to practice it in the med room and then they'd want to go into the room and have me supervise them and double check their work before they would go in and do it all by themselves.
Katie:Yeah. And you know, to be fair in the end, she had done it right. I double checked it after I went home and it was correct. And that's great. That's just on me or on anybody, whether they're comfortable going down on something they don't recognize.
Carma:Right. Well, and it was just outside of our norm, like you mentioned that we usually have somebody check us multiple times before we would do it ourselves without a double check. Yeah, the first time I did a Canyon without you, Katie, made me nervous. when you don't have that person with you, who's like Your co lead, your best Canyon buddy. Right. Then you kind of have to set up new norms in your group. For example the first time a bunch of our normal crew went together, but without you was interesting because we had to make a new flow so people had to step into different roles and it worked out great but it was different.
Katie:And it sounds like that might have made space for people to, get experience that maybe they didn't have when I was there.
Carma:Yeah, definitely.
Katie:I remember you told me something about being the last person down and actually Truly being responsible for the rope pull, which not that you haven't done it the whole time But I think you said something about that just being different when you actually confronted it
Carma:yeah. So when we went without Katie, I fell into being the last person down role and It was actually really good, yeah, because I got so much more comfortable with that role, and I was being really cognizant of how we were rigging for the pull and where the rope was going to lay and being that person coming down you know, just making sure the rope wasn't twisted it was a good experience for me to have to do that repeatedly because it made me really comfortable. And we even had discussion amongst us because we had Sarah and Char out front doing a lot of the rigging and going down first. And at one point, one of them offered to go last to clean. And I was like, Oh yeah, if you want to, but honestly, I'm feeling good about it. That Canyon happened to have a lot of repels. So I got to practice it a lot. And Everyone did awesome. It was a good day.
Katie:That's been my experience in some of these other canyons where I was jumping into Pacific Northwest with the Mountaineers and they're an amazing crew and they're so fun and they've got their stuff dialed. And for that, I was not the bread. for a few trips up there and that was just fun to be in that zone where oh, I'm keeping up the conversations to know if somebody's still feeling good or someone's getting tired, but I'm more on that social side of team. Morale, you know, and helping like joking and having a good time. And that's an important role too, is to help keep everyone moving because sometimes the rigors, you know, they have to be in super cereal mode all the time. They get in that mode and they kind of need somebody to come by and splash and have some fun and to hand them a cookie, you know, And there were some things I didn't know that I got to do if I didn't rig. Like coming up and analyzing an anchor that you didn't get to see the knots tied. When you actually have to look at an MMO and really look at it, not getting to see it tied, it's harder to inspect than if you got to see it tied, if you were number one or number two.
Carma:Right. And you weren't part of that discussion. And then you're approaching it and you're analyzing it from, outside this discussion and seeing, is this how I would have done it? Can I see why they chose to do these
Katie:Am I good with this?
Carma:Yeah. Am I okay with this? Yep. I've done that before too with, natural anchors, like Karen anchors and things coming up when I wasn't, you know, part of the setting up the rappel or inspecting everything Cause even though other people have gone down it, do I want to go down it?
Katie:There have also been some times in these big groups where I really have held to my ground and really made sure that I was comfortable and really confident with what we were doing, there was a spot, um, on one of my trips to an aquatic canyon, and there was a big jump at the end. A big, like, 40 feet. And, I was the last person down. I set the anchor. I was manning the anchor. And you basically have to rappel to a platform, then get off rappel and do this 40 foot jump. So, somebody else had gone down first and had swam over to land, and then... Another person went down and, it didn't sound like they jumped. It seemed like they swam, but I wasn't totally sure. They moved pretty quick. And then the third person I heard jump. They dropped their bag. It sounded like, and then something else, I don't know if it was their jump or if they took off their helmet. But it all happened really fast and I wasn't. sure that there was enough time in between that somebody had actually done a depth check. And so when I got out to the ledge, I wasn't totally sure. And I was asking the group, my sign language was great. Everybody understood what I was asking. I was asking, did you guys jump from this spot? And everybody said, yes, that jump happened from that spot. But I couldn't confirm that actually somebody had checked the depth of the water. I kind of like touched my eyes. Like, did somebody look down here and it just wasn't reading from like across the pool and with the noise of the waterfall and everything, and I couldn't confirm somebody had checked the depth of the water. it seemed like I don't know, were we just doing a jump test? And because I wasn't sure, I actually rappelled down kind of an extra five feet to kind of a weirder spot to jump from, but I got to a spot where I could see really well through the crystal clear of the water and that's where I jumped from. If I can't get solid communication that it's been checked, then I'm going to move around to this other spot where I can see the lights really good and I can actually see all the way to the bottom.
Carma:Right. Where you're like, if I can't confirm, then I'm not going to proceed.
Katie:Yeah, I'm either finish this repel and just do it as a repel and not do it as a jump, or I'm going to move to where I can see everything I need to see to make the jump.
Carma:Right. Don't assume just because other people have gone before you that they did all the things that you would have done.Trust in yourself. Right?
Katie:Yeah, All in all going with new groups of people is awesome. It's super fun to get out with new personalities And see things a different way, get new perspectives, learn new techniques, get introduced to an area that you don't know very well, and grow your canyon crew. Get to go out more often
Carma:hmm. Mm hmm.
Katie:to go with. All these things are Awesome perks, take 8? And we also hope that we've pointed you in some directions for a few things to just keep an eye on. If you can go with somebody who you already know and just have one person in the group who you know, that's awesome. That really helps alleviate a lot of the stress and pressure. And if you can't, if you can get a feel for them, get someone else to vouch for them, tell you a little bit about how the crew generally rolls compared to how you go, that's really helpful to, to just have some insight to the group before you go.
Carma:Yeah, and something I've really taken away from going with new groups is to just not make assumptions. So when you're running with your own group, you kind of have these preset assumptions about what it's going to be like. don't assume everyone's going to bring all the gear that you expect. Don't assume that everyone's going to, check everything the way that you expect. Just be open to, Asking questions and finding different solutions. Talk to people in the group, if you're not comfortable with something, that you see in the Canyon, there's ways to get around that. And also I think that it's just really smart when you're going with new people to pick canyons that are within your skill level, and maybe even some shorter outings at first. So you can feel things out before you're super committed to a situation that might not end up being your favorite. You can mitigate some of those issues if you pick something simpler, shorter and canyons, ideally, even maybe ones that you personally know. So you can see people in action and decide whether or not you want to do something bigger with them.
Katie:Yeah. Treat it like a first date.
Carma:right?
Katie:don't go road tripping with someone for your first date. Get to know them first, dance the dance, you know, see if it works out and see if you want to commit to some of those bigger trips.
Carma:Canyon speed dating.
Katie:canyon speed dating.
Carma:Yeah. If you're totally hooked on canyoneering like us, remember to subscribe, so you don't miss any episodes and you can also reach out to us on Facebook. with questions, comments, topics you wanna talk about, or just to say, Hey, cuz We would love to hear from you. Thanks for dropping in with us and we'll catch you on the wrap side.
