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
The SUV Analogy (Part 2): How to advance to your next canyoneering stage
Now that you know which seat of the SUV you're in, find out what skills you should be working on to level up your canyoneering skills.
*Bonus: canyoneering descender user manuals
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! Welcome back, everyone. We are on the second episode of a two part series here, and we are talking about judging our friends and ourselves and everyone on our team. Karma and I have found the space where it is nice to be able to classify some friends when we're going on trips and get the balance right on our teams. So you obviously wouldn't want a ton of beginners going with only one person who's seasoned, or a ton of beginners with an intermediate person. So we came up with a little analogy to help us see where everyone is on the scale, including ourselves, and it is our SUV analogy. So just to get everybody caught up, there are five people in our 4Runner, and we've got a driver in the front, who's the leader of the trip. We've got a co pilot who helps to do all the planning and in the back seats, we go from an infant seat where they need everything done for them to a booster seat, someone who's learning the ropes, doing pretty well and up to kind of a teenage passenger who can do almost everything for themselves, but still need to be checked off. In this episode, we're going to look at what things we can do to progress from one seat to the next, and we'll have a bunch of tips on how to do that.
Carma:So our number one suggestion when you're wanting to advance between different seats in the SUV and progress in your canyoneering is to take a class. It's the most efficient way to get better. And honestly, you're going to learn things correctly the first time so that you can be making good habits and you're going to find out the reasoning behind why your instructors are teaching you to do these things. So what we're going to talk about now is after you've taken a class, these are some of the things that you can work on in Canyon with your mentor to progress, and we'll go through each of the different seats in the SUV and some suggestions we have, specifically what skills you should be working on.
Katie:So again, we'll start with the the most beginner the infant car seat and If you are in that spot where someone is doing your harness for you every time and doing your repel device. Those are the first two steps to learn how to do those yourself. Go ahead and look at your specific harness and look online for what the manufacturer says on how to adjust it properly. Get to know your harness really well, and then also, learn how to rig your own rappel device so that you know what it should look like. You get it right 100 percent of the time. You can sit and practice that in front of the TV with a length of six foot rope from REI.
Carma:But what you can't practice in front of your TV is developing some more grit. So if you have not spent much time in the backcountry, then you may need to start getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. This is kind of an intangible quality that Katie and I have talked about, Canyon crew members someone can be less experienced, but if they have awesome grit, we'll take them into places that we wouldn't otherwise take them because we know that they have proven themselves to be good teammates when things get hard. To train yourself and increase your grit, go out into the back country and other venues and do hard things. Honestly, get dirty, get some adventure marks, and, be up for helping when things get tough.
Katie:Yeah, absolutely amazing quality to have in a canyon partner. There have definitely been people who've come on trips who it may be been their first or second canyon and we were doing a more intense canyon. But I knew this person had some really good grit because of climb the Tetons with them or I've gone on a three day backpacking trip with them and they got blisters and they didn't whine about it the whole time. Um, like that kind of grit. Just being cold or having to wait out a storm, those things become a real asset to the team when things don't go exactly as you'd planned. And it's really hard for things to go exactly as you'd planned in a canyon that you've never been in before.
Carma:Yeah, that's so true. So moving on to the booster seat position, Some of the things that you could be doing to progress and contribute to your team is when you're going out, start bringing a pack that's big enough to help carry the rope. Also.
Katie:don't show up with a little mountain biking bladder and that's it. that's not fair to the rest of the
Carma:so I have a friend who calls those hot chick packs because the only ones who can get away with carrying teeny little packs are hot chicks where the dudes will carry all the crap because they just want the hot chick to come. So stop bringing a hot chick pack and bring an actual
Katie:A gear
Carma:gear pack so you can help carry group crap. Anyway, also, um, learn how to bag rope. I guarantee you, whoever's leading you will be happy to teach you how to bag rope. It actually is a really good way to warm up if you're getting cold in a canyon. So you should already know how to rig your own rappel device correctly. Now you want to start learning some of these, other skills with your rappel device. Learning how to correctly add friction. You want to know how to lock off your device. And you can find that by looking at, the manufacturer's information that came with your rappel device. if you don't have those, you can find those online and we can even include them again in, our podcast notes, but, on there it'll also show you ways to add friction and it'll show you ways to lock it off, and so practice those skills and know them really well for your own device.
Katie:And if that paper is confusing you, reach out to a friend who has that same device and just ask to take a video of how to do it. sometimes those papers are hard to read and there's, there are YouTube videos out there and you're like, Oh, it's just that. I mean, I remember that when I was trying to decide if I wanted to buy a squirrel or not. And I was like, I don't know that lock off looks kind of tricky. I don't know. There's a lot of arrows. And, uh, and then Karma was like, it's not that hard. You do this. Back and forth, back and forth, and now you're done. So, like, the way that she showed me, I was like, oh, that's easy, compared to trying to interpret a lot of arrows can sometimes just be a little bit of a
Carma:yeah,
Katie:and a lot of times the manufacturers have videos on it, too.
Carma:Yep. And then another thing you can be working on is learning how to operate a third hand or a hands free backup. So there's a lot of different options for that, using a VT Prusik or a Hollowblock. Learn how to do that because that's a skill you're going to need, eventually when you're getting to the point where you can start going down first.
Katie:Yeah. And rock climbers. This is a good time to ask your friends who've been in the canyoneering world a little bit longer. If they have any other advice for what to use for a hands free backup, this is a really cool place to learn a few extras to add to your toolkit.
Carma:You're also going to want to learn to recognize the differences between common single strand and double strand rigging, so that when you walk up to the repel, you can know how to evaluate which side of the rope you should be getting yourself onto, in order to repel safely.
Katie:The last passenger in the back row is our teenager. They're mostly self sufficient and pretty confident. However, the difference between the front seat and the back seats is that the front seat team members, like the driver and co pilot, make decisions that will affect the safety of the entire group, like rigging and pulling the rope to ensure it doesn't get stuck. Someone in the teenager position doesn't yet have the experience to make those decisions, so if you're in the teenager position, here are our recommendations for you. You need to start acquiring your own gear so you can get to know it really well and practice with it at home. and kind of diversifying it. Try out a few different items, and then go ahead and learn about other harnesses so that you know the difference between the two types, which. Most of them are auto locking now, but every once in a while you'll see one that has to be doubled back and you need to see that C shaped for closed. If you don't know the difference between those two, go ahead and look that up so that you can start to recognize them just in case someone shows up with an old school harness. Do buddy checks for others. If you are checking yourself every time you have one Canyon's worth of experience, when you finish, if you double check other people, you're going to double and triple your experience of checking repel devices as people are going down. Also learned a fireman belay others and ask how to do proper partner assists. Learn to self rescue and to go down first. maybe mock going down first by having somebody be a backup, but you treating it like you're the first one down. Learn to inspect the anchors by stepping up. Ask somebody what they're looking at. Ask somebody what they're checking for. If the webbing looks really new, ask them why they're looking through the back and you might learn something about, you know, mice chewing holes and stuff. Ask somebody if they decide to cut the webbing, why they did and why they replaced it this time. Handle that stuff. Really get a feel for it.
Carma:And while you're up there at the front, ask the person who's rigging to show you how they're rigging and why they're choosing to rig that way. There are some things that when you're watching someone rig are obvious, but there are other things that you're not going to catch unless they explain to you why they're making the choices that they are and what things they're trying to avoid by making that choice. So by letting them know that you're trying to learn, they have an opportunity to explain to you the nuances of the rigging that they've already learned as far as certain details of maybe which direction they want to place the block, Whether it's down canyon or up canyon or if they're doing a certain tie off on their figure eight to avoid having extra loops of rope getting caught in the bushes or something like that. So you really get that opportunity to hear the why behind it and you have an opportunity to ask questions. So there if there's something you don't understand you can say well why Why does it look that way this time and it looked a different way another time? You know, you have that learning opportunity between you and the rigger to get down to the nitty gritty with them.
Katie:Other things you can do is that teenage passenger is to start reading beta for the canyons before and after you do them so that you can see if your interpretation matched the reality of the canyon. You can also try navigating in the field based on the beta. Ask yourself what choices are coming up ahead and make a decision about what you think is the right path before the leader shows you the way. Also, watch other team members, and start recognizing risks for people less skilled than you are, so you can help protect the team. Watch when somebody does a tricky down climb who is less experienced than you, and see if the leaders set up hand line or a top belay, and see how their feet do. Just kind of get a feel for if somebody hikes this way, they might down climb that way. And if they slip on this kind of environment, then we probably need to protect them up at this repel. Those kinds of things where you're starting to anticipate. That's what the backseat passenger needs to work on. As we've talked about, there's a huge jump between the back seat and the front seat. So the co pilot is responsible for knowing a lot of extra information. You need a good general background of the outdoors, which means you're going to need to know medical safety and first aid, permitting processes, weather, watersheds. So get a general understanding of those basic outdoor elements as part of your foundational skills to becoming a co pilot and eventually a driver.
Carma:If you're in the co pilot seat already, some of the things that you can do to help progress to be a driver is to participate in the trip planning. So look at all the beta and try to interpret it yourself as if you were going to be the driver and then share what you find with the driver. So read it all yourself, kind of synthesize it in your mind, and then try to tell the driver, as if you were the trip leader, and then have them give you that feedback of like, hey, so I also noticed that at this critical junction or at this repel, we may want to do something else. And so they're going to be able to fill in where you missed something, or they may help you focus on what is the most important part of what you just read, the part that really, changes things for the team. Also assist the driver in coordinating with all the members of your team. So help with that load of communicating about the Canyon and, setting the logistics up of who's got what gear and what cars are we going to need to go to these different canyons? Where are we going to camp? Things like that to help make a trip come together and take some of that load off of the driver.
Katie:Absolutely.
Carma:As the co pilot, you're already thinking about not only how to set up an anchor, but what needs to be done to retrieve the rope successfully.
Katie:as you're going down rappel, you can start to pretend that you are the last person down and practice setting that rope for the pull like you are actually going to pull it. I've had Karma do this before where I had her go down as if she was the last person down, but really she was second to last. And then I came down after her and said, I changed this part because I thought it was going to get snagged on that little V slot right there. Watch that next time. Watch for V slots. But by doing that, you can really get some good feedback pretending you're the last person down. Every time.
Carma:That was really helpful because you're doing that skill, practicing it, but in a low pressure situation. And now what you can do is actually get some real experience going down last where, it really is the buck stopping with you on the rope pull. And one of the things you can do is talk it out with your mentor, with your driver, who's already gone down to the bottom of rappel. You can talk through the steps of what you're doing. Like, okay, I am removing the safety. I am clipping the rope to myself. I am laying the rope away from that rope groove. So you can. Have kind of those auditory double checks from them, even though you actually are getting that chance to be the last person down.
Katie:Absolutely. And I would, again, like Karma saying, do this with a mentor who one can talk you through it from the bottom. And if this is a canyon where there's a bunch of long repels, you can bring some radio so that communication is super solid. And also a mentor who maybe can help you fix something if you make a mistake, you know, like if you forget to take the safety off, and you came down a repel that's now fixed, you're gonna want to have somebody on the team who knows how to ascend back up and fix that. you know, if ideally, if the anchors are strong enough. But pick and choose the ones that you're gonna go down last on, and get that experience with. You know, the first time that I'm really being the last one down, I'd prefer to go off a bunch of bolts, because there's a lot more options to fix things, and work my way up to more marginal anchors.
Carma:And it's the same kind of progression with all the skills that you're going to be learning. So you're going to start with the simple things and then progress to the more complicated things with your mentor by your side. So you've learned how to rig, Simple repels now start learning how to rig the more complicated ones. Start incorporating courtesy rigging and rigging for simple rescue scenarios. Learn the basics of mechanical advantage and memorize your favorite like three to one setup and carry the gear on your harness to be able to do that and practice how to do those simple things quickly so that they come naturally to you when you need them. And then progress to learning, more complicated mechanical advantage scenarios and learn how to ascend and practice ascending so that you can figure out exactly what pieces of gear work the best for you. I know I have personally modified my equipment a bunch with that. What I thought I wanted to use. Once I practiced, I had to dial that in and I learned that. Some combinations don't fit together very well. So, for example, I was practicing ascending in the climbing gym, and I was using a rope man as my rope grab that had my foot loop on it, so the rope grab on the top, and then I was using my microtraction attached to my harness as my bottom rope grab. And so, uh, As I started going up the rope, I realized I got a few feet off the ground, and all of a sudden I came to a halt, and I looked at my rope man and my microtraction, and they were touching, they were sitting right on top of each other, and the rope man has a little piece of cable at the bottom of it that you have to use to like pull down to disengage the cam so that you can
Katie:Oh no!
Carma:And that little piece of cable had gotten sucked into the pulley part of my microtraction and I came to a complete stop.
Katie:What did,you do?
Carma:Luckily I was on a top belay because we were at the climbing gym, but I grabbed a third rope grab and put it above everything else so that I could take off all of my stuck gear. And that's when I realized like that combination doesn't work well together.
Katie:Oh man. Well, I'm glad you figured that out, not in a canyon.
Carma:Yeah, definitely.
Katie:what I would really advise is if you are wanting to get into this driver's seat, go out with a bunch of drivers. go out with a bunch of people who are at this advanced level, who are capable of leading other groups. And if that is your group that you're going out with, you're going to have five mentors with you. You're going to be able to step into this position probably the most smoothly with at least one mentor, but maybe a group of mentors.
Carma:Yeah, ask a lot of questions.
Katie:And ask to be critiqued. Ask to rig something and ask to be critiqued on it. Ask to get advice and to let,, people who know what they're doing give you pointers and nuances and really polish what you're doing.
Carma:Right.
Katie:And the driver is also somebody who needs to be critiqued. So once you've kind of reached where you're feeling like I'm a driver, I know what I'm doing. It is now your job to seek out people who are better than you to continue to progress. Some really good places to look for information here are to go take a class on something that you are not well versed in. If you are really interested in rescue rigging, go and get that polished up. Also go out with other drivers, people who are, Leading canyons, other places, see what they're using. See what they're doing differently than you let them critique you. Let them look at your rigging and see if they have any insight to what you're doing and how they might do something differently. Also, you're going to have to be really involved in the canyon community. You know, there's a lot of really good information coming from other canyoning groups right now. There's information and new best practices being established all the time coming from our friends in Europe and Australia, New Zealand, all over the place. They're adding to what we know and the progression of a canyon and new bolting techniques. Um, putting in temporary bolts is an idea. You've also got. information coming out from the companies who produce all of the devices, or from the rope companies, where we may have learned something about semi static ropes, or we might have learned that the piranha is not going to mix with the dual sheath ropes, and that that's no longer advised to do it that way, or that there's a new way that's going to be a better rigging technique. I've seen some things come out recently with the totem and ways that when you're doing a lower, there can be an auto lock set up on that. So there's always new information coming in. And if you're going to set yourself up as that driver is that leader, then you definitely need to be interacting with other drivers and other leaders to make sure that you're keeping up with best practices and constantly stepping up your game. And. Some of the best places to go do that is to go with other leaders at a rendezvous. That's one of the best places to meet other leaders and also to meet around the campfire after you've run some canyons and talk through some scenarios, you can get a lot of really good insight by going to rendezvous and connecting with other leaders.
Carma:I completely agree. I just went to my first rendezvous up in Seattle. It was the Pacific Northwest rendezvous put on by the Mountaineers. And I have to say, I was very impressed with the caliber of canyoneers that were leading those canyons. And going there, having been a leader in a lot of canyons in the desert, but not having been a leader. In any class C canyons, I was blown away where I was like, man, I got to step up my game. There is so much more to learn. And, it was really a neat experience to get to be in one of those backseat positions again, and just be responsible for myself at that point, because I was not used to the swift water. It was a lot stronger than anything else I've ever been in, but I was very confident in the leadership that I had, and it was an awesome learning opportunity and a great place to network with other people who just are super involved in the sport and know a ton about what's going on in the community.
Katie:And one thing I think is really cool is when a leader talks to a leader, You already speak the same language. And so you can get right to the meat of it right away on why someone chose to do something a certain way. And with that, I feel like we grow even faster when leaders get to talk to leaders.
Carma:Yeah, for example, we were talking to another one of the leaders at the PNW rendezvous and we were just asking him, why did you choose to do like that transcript? Daisy chain or European finish on the releasable figure eight. And he was telling us that there's times when he has wanted to be able to release the anchor and not have to be standing right up next to the bolts, but be able to be like five or six feet away from it and still be able to release the anchor and to control the lowering of someone. So that was, like an awesome detail and nuance to learn about why you would choose that lock off that we wouldn't have had the opportunity to find out if we're not going with other people who have a lot of leading experience.
Katie:and he was standing five or six feet below it because of the terrain of the canyon. So it was a really good example to see we were both there.
Carma:it was really nice to see it in action.
Katie:Hopefully after hearing about these different seats in the car, you can kind of picture where you are with your own group and where you are maybe in the general canyoning community now. And at any of these levels, when you're trying to move up, you can do a test with a more experienced person where you say, Hey, I want to work on doing this on my own, can you just watch me and don't say anything unless I make a critical error and I'll tell you when I'm ready for my check and that way you can talk through obstacles and you can work on your rigging and have somebody look at it one skill at a time instead of feeling overwhelmed, but somebody can walk through a transition from being a infant on this one skill up to a booster seat, all the way up to the driver's seat
Carma:While you're on that journey from the infant seat to the driver's seat, just remember along the way to please be a good passenger. So Just like on a real road trip, how it can be really exhausting to be the only driver on a long trip. It's also taxing on the leader to constantly be assessing obstacles and making safety decisions for a wide ranging level of skills. That trip leader, that driver and that co pilot are carrying a heavy mental load. And it's something that they're doing for you as their friend or fellow canyoneer. So when you're the passenger, remember that, your driver and co pilot are carrying a mental load.
Katie:so don't be the mouthy teenager in the back. Don't be saying I'm fine mom. I don't what I know. I always know Like it's a lot of work to keep people safe and mid canyon If, people have just been, snarky or sarcastic too much, that leader's going to have a lot of mental fatigue and, isn't going to be able to do as good of a job and might not want to bring you
Carma:Yeah, so consider when you show up as a passenger, all of the hours that the pilot and the co pilot have already put into planning and coordinating the trip before you even showed up or before you even got an invitation. So think of like your mental load as a passenger, completing the canyon for yourself. You know, making sure you have what you can take care of, and then multiply it by how many people are on the trip, plus the first and last person's responsibility, and you get like a little idea of what the driver and the co pilot, are doing to make the trip a reality.
Katie:Yeah, every time they show up at a repel, they aren't just figuring out if they can do it. They're figuring out how they're going to do it and how everyone else is going to do it and mentally imagining everybody and any kind of problem or pendulum swing that might come up for the entire group and how to coach people through that. Just multiply that mental load to feel like what it is like to be a guide. Just a small, small piece of
Carma:Yeah, As a good passenger, some of the things that you can do is take care of as much of your own responsibility as you are able to do. Respond to texts and read the information that your leaders are giving to you. just have an opinion about something, even if you don't know all the details in the background, do those parts of the trip planning that you can do. So like we love re inviting our friends who have outdoor skills in other areas and who will jump in and be like, Hey, I'll bring the cooler with cold drinks for after we get out of the canyon or I'll research campsites, because I know how to do that. So jump in wherever you can.
Katie:And that's honestly a huge way to get invited back. I mean, there's been canyons where you and I were juggling a lot of logistics and weather and trying to get beta on what the most recent conditions were. And that was just a heavy lift for us to do, you know, after work each night. So having somebody who's like, Hey, guess what? I'll take care of the food.
Carma:Right, or I'll book the hotel or the campsite or whatever, do the research to find out where on the BLM land we can camp,
Katie:Yeah, someone who's not a big canyoneer, but it's a great backpacker could totally do that part.
Carma:Right. They already have the understanding of trip coordinating and logistics. And so they can contribute to the trip as a whole, even if, they need a little bit more help with like the technical planning. Another tip is just say, thank you to the people who lead you through a canyon. So it doesn't have to be anything big, just, just say thank you. And if you want to do a little more than that, you can buy them a Gatorade or a beer when you're done, or like pick up the tab for their dinner, or maybe help contribute to their next rope purchase or something because you're using their gear, you're benefiting from their knowledge. So just make them feel a little bit appreciated
Katie:right? You might be breaking stuff you don't know you're even breaking, or you might be putting some severe rope grooves in their critters, and you don't even know it yet because you don't recognize that you're going way too fast and you're burning pieces of gear. And they're gonna replace those. And they probably won't tell you that they're gonna replace those. Cause it's just like, ah, that's just the wear and tear with a beginner it's more harsh, you know, you put a hole in their wetsuit, those kinds of things happen. And a trip leader has had that happen a lot and has replaced a lot of gear and has spent a lot of extra time in canyons making sure everybody else is having a good time. so I just always try to say thank you for that too.
Carma:Yeah. And also, don't be offended if you don't get invited on every trip.
Katie:Oh, yeah, don't be the one who's mad at them for leaving you out when there's only six spots on the permit and they have fifty canyon friends.
Carma:Yeah. And it may just be like, they didn't invite you because that canyon isn't appropriate for you yet. There's a lot of reasons like permit availability, and maybe they've been talking about that specific canyon with another friend for a long time. So, um, don't whine. When you don't get invited to every trip because it's really not possible to do that,
Katie:So every team you go out with is going to have a different mix of passengers, drivers, co pilots. And I just want to encourage you to enjoy that. Enjoy it when somebody has more experience than you. Enjoy helping other people to step up their game and become better canyoneers. Ask questions, be curious, and ask other people how you can help them too. Make it fun. This game of canyoneering is a constant learning environment. There are no two canyons that will ever be exactly the same, and there's no canyon that going down at a second time is going to be exactly the same. So we're going to be in a constant state of learning, and just get comfortable with that. It's part of the game, part of the fun.
Carma:Hey, Canyon Crew, we need your help to grow the show. If you learned something valuable from this episode, please share it with a friend. You can also help more amazing canyoneers find the show by giving us a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app. Lastly, if you'd like to fund our quest for great canyoneering content, click on the support the show button in the show notes As always, thanks for dropping in with us. We'll catch you on the rap side.
