Gearlist - Dav

I live in the LA basin. We do weekend trips to places like Zion and the Sierras, but our typical haunts are the San Gabriels. It makes sense to optimize your gear selection for these conditions. Challenges further afield require more specialized gear that isn't necessary until you're ready to tackle bigger canyons, high water volumes, pothole escapes, large rappels, sharks, etc.

I'm optimizing for rugged materials, that are also lightweight and comfortable when wet.

Items that work for me if I'm not leading a trip and don't need to save anyone.

Clothes

• Shoes - 5.10 Canyoneer 3 Canvas
• Socks - Neosport 5mm neoprene socks
• Glove - Red Steer "Chilly Grip" or neoprene when conditions dictate
• Underwear - speedo swim "shorts" or something athletic and synthetic
• Pants - North Face "Paramount Peak" convertible
• Shirts - Nike or NorthFace synthetic long and short sleeve shirts depending on the weather and sun exposure.
• 3mm wetsuit - Typically the more you pay, the more stretchy and easy to move your suit will be.
• Hat - Embarassing helmet brim for sun protection

Technical Gear

This is a canyon-adapted "frog" ascending system.

• Harness - Petzl Canyon or Singing Rock Canyon XP
• Carabiners - 4x Petzl William locking screwgate
• Descender - Sqwurel or Resonator 3000v2
• Ascenders - Petzl Croll (connected to the waist webbing via quicklink) and Petzl Ascension (connected to the long cowtail or in pack, depending)
• Safety lanyard - Caving dynamic rope cowtails connected to the waist webbing via croll quicklink. Petzl Vertigo Wire carabiners
• Helmet - Mammut, Petzl, or Black Diamond that fits nicely. The lighter softer styrofoam is probably a good choice. I find the Mammut comfortable but smelly.

Misc

• Canyon Keg (Dry bags are a lie)
• Pack - Imlay "Mystery", Imlay "Heaps", or equivalent Rodcle bags for Class C.
• Bottle - 2-3 1L Nalgene
• Whistle - REI Tri-power
• Webbing - Sterling Techtape, black
• Quicklinks
• Headlamp - Sten S7+, Zebralight (floody)

Bringing hiking & backpacking equipment (your day pack or platypus for instance) into a canyon is typically fine, so long as you realize it's going to get trashed.

Poles

I occasionally use poles on long arduous or overnight trips. I'll collapse them and put them in my bag (point down) before dropping into the canyon. Canyon descents require balance and strength and hands at this point they become a liability and are likely to stab someone.

Shoes

I'm a "11" or "11.5" in normal shoes...

I've owned:

• Adidas HydroLace 11.5uk / 12us - Slightly too big, even with neoprene
• Canyoneer2 11.5 - Fit pretty good, but not quite long enough... sold them after two wears.
• Canyoneer2 12 - Fits nicely with insoles
• Canyoneer3 12 - Fits nicely with insoles
• Canyoneer3 12.5 - Fits nicely with fresh neosocks
• Guide Tennie - 12 Fits nicely
• SAR 11.5 - Sold after two wears, too much toe bang with the hard toe box.
• SAR 12 - Long enough but too wide. They've gone caving every third weekend and canyoneering once or twice a week since summer. You can see the wear for yourself. Pretty decent for ~$90 (+insoles) I'd say.
• Savant 12 - Shrunk slightly. I'll buy the 12.5 next time.