SoCal Grotto Gear Recommendations

Background

Southern California has a wide variety of caves, canyons, and abandoned mines to explore.

New members who join the caving club often ask leaders for gear recommendations to join others on trips. Determining the right piece of gear for a person is challenging. This page provide a basic template and a starting point for equipment decisions.

Recommendations are hard to give because:

• Caves in southern California are diverse: There are lava tubes, sea caves, boulder caves, and caves which have formed in breccia, granite, limestone and marble.
• The closest evening trips that require rope techniques are generally canyons (At night you might consider canyons big caves-with-no-ceiling)
• The closest underground experience many SoCal Grotto members will have is mine exploring, Los Angeles has a rich mining history.

As an analogy: You wouldn't want to recommend someone take a Ferrari off-roading, or a Jeep to the racetrack. The same applies for recommending gear.

If you were to ask experts in mine exploration, canyoneering, or caving what gear to buy, you would receive answers based on their particular specialty (and sub-specialty) environments. Even experts with years of exploring the exact same environment will disagree on the best way to solve vertical problems informed by their body shape and experiences. This isn't a problem though, since many people creatively trying different approaches leads to equipment which works in multiple environments.

Recommendations follow this logic:

1. Recommendations are location specific to Southern California, taking your gear to Italy or Tennessee will have suboptimal results.
2. Money is no object. Lives are at stake. Yes, cheaper similar products exist, there's usually a reason they're cheaper.
3. To keep this list easy to update there will be no links, prices, or specifications.
4. Explanations will be terse, if present at all.
5. You might ask yourself, "Why not use X instead of Y." Go try it, publish your results, and improve this page. Typical reasons for preferring Y are "mud", "efficiency", or "reliability".
6. Frog system only. Other ascending systems are outside the scope of people buying their first set of gear.
7. Recommendations will be as versatile as possible while staying true to the intended purpose.
8. Production products only. Yes, you could all sew your own soft goods. And if you're reading this page, you should not.

Recommendations

Shoes

Excellent shoes with sticky rubber are possibly more important than a helmet. For some caves and canyons sticky footwear is so critical that a trip leader might decide you're not taking the trip seriously enough, and present a serious safety hazard to the group, then tell you you're no longer welcome on the trip. Most long time canyoneers have seen a group member slip and get hurt, it's educational to ask them about instances they remember.

Shoes appropriate for canyoneering in California are generally also appropriate for caving. The shoes listed on this page would be solid choices.

Canyon shoes to consider

Helmet

Helmet recommendations are tricky. There's the 10% element of style. Always use a helmet that's intended for the type of impacts you'll experience. e.g. Don't wear your snowboarding helmet to climb. Questions to ask about your helmet:

• Do you want to hard mount your lights to it? (Using the elastic headband allows a light to bounce while you move)
• Do you want your lights to be removable for daylight adventures?
• Can you fit a helmet brim for sun protection?
• Do you need pony-tail accommodations?
• Is weight on your head and neck an issue?
• Is it comfortable?
• Will you destroy the first time you bash your head in a cave?
• Who do you want to fit in with, canyoneers, cavers, or rescuers?

Rappel Device

There is no perfect rappel device. It's not possible to "smart decision" your way out of owning many devices eventually. Plan on owning multiple devices for different activities in the long run. Presence of flowing water, need for automatic backup safety, rope diameter, rope length, and materials will all dictate what device you choose for each outing. In particular, long rappels counterintuitively complicate device choice.

For your first device, solve your most immediate need. If you'll be mostly canyoneering, get an eight-variant with horns. If you're primarily caving get a microrack. You can do easy canyons or caves with either. Don't buy anything specialized hoping to impress your friends.

With regard to canyoneering style figure-eight variants, humans tend to prefer the device with the best friction fit for their body weight. For example, people weighing 130-180lbs seem to prefer critr2's while heavier canyoneers often prefer sqwurels. Keep this in mind when offered advice from someone who is not a similar weight to you. A piranha is a poor option for a heavy canyoneer but your 110lb mentor may like theirs a lot.

Caving

Helmet

Petzl Vertex Vent or Boreo / Borea

Avoid expired (e.g. Ecrin Roc) or soft shells (e.g. Vapor or Sirocco)

Headlamp

Zebralight (waterproof, requires 18650 batteries and charger)

List of caving worthy, production and purpose built headlamps

Avoid any headlamp sold at REI except 18650 powered Fenix brand headlamps

Gloves

Red Steer Chilly Grips (cold dry)

NRS reactor neoprene gloves (cold wet)

nitrile coated cotton (warm dry)

Whistle

TriPower

Harness

Petzl SuperAvanti ("leg loop" design, quality materials, small in pack, not entirely comfortable)

Petzl Aven

MTDE Amazonia 2 ("sit harness" design, high abrasion resistance)

Avoid any harness that doesn't connect with a half-round d-link at the front. Climbing harness are extremely inefficient and a very poor choice.

Cowstail

Two separate lengths of 11m dynamic rope. Offset figure-8 knots at harness, grapevine knots at carabiner. (Separate for pack hangs and rescue techniques)

Avoid pre-sewn tethers (incorrect lengths / not elastic) and skinny rope/cord (dangerous).

Cowstail Carabiners

Petzl Vertigo Wire-lock (Opens fast, but still locking)

Avoid non-keylock

Decender

BMS micro rack short frame, dual hyperbar (Good for everything from Crusty 11mm to new 8mm up to about 500ft)

BMS micro rack long frame, dual hyperbar (same, for humans under 150lbs)

Avoid descenders that don't accept a wide range of rope diameters, twist the rope, and aluminum

Decender Carabiner

Petzl Am'd or better yet, a quicklink

Avoid non-keylock and large gates (i.e. Omega Pacific Jake)

Hand Ascender

Petzl Ascension (comfortable one-handed operation) ("Left" for people who are righties, Lefties get a choice of left or right handed operation)

Avoid devices which require two hands to operate.

Chest Ascender

Petzl Croll L (Easy to downclimb on 11mm, more durability)

Avoid Basic (wrong geometry), and Croll S (they're too small for downclimbing on fuzzy fat caving ropes)

Chest harness

Adventure Verticale Spelshoulder

Women avoid buying anything without first trying with your body shape.

Footloop

Petzl Footcord (small and adjustable)

Footloop carabiner

DMM Phantom (small and locking) (Moveable footloop for rescue techniques)

Pack

PMI Large PVC Gear Pack (For medium loads)

Swaygo Large (For small loads)

Avoid zippers

Cavesuit

Adventure Verticale (Wet & Cold environments)?

Dickies (Cool & dry)

Shorts and tights (Hot)

Kneepads

Dirty Daves (Least fuss)

Elbowpads

Avoid unshaped pads that are just flat

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Ken Demarest's Mininimal Gear Buyers Guide for Texas caving

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Canyoning

Helmet

Black Diamond Half-dome?

Grivel Salamander?

Petzl Boreo?

Gloves

nitrile coated cotton (warm weather)

Neoprene (cold water)

Avoid leather, drying after water exposure damages them)

Whistle

TriPower

Headlamp

Zebralight

List of caving worthy, production and purpose built headlamps

Harness

Singing Rock Canyon XP

Cowstail

Single 11m dynamic rope. Figure-8 at harness connected to rapide at waist, grapevine knots at carabiners.

Cowstail Carabiners

Petzl Vertigo Wire-lock

Decender

BluGnome Sqwurel

Decender Carabiner

Edelrid HMS Bulletproof triple FG

Black Diamond Rocklock Twistlock

Avoid carabiners with “I-Frame” barstock.

Hand Ascender

Petzl Basic

Chest Ascender

Petzl Croll S

Chest ascender connection

Mallion Rapide 6mm long

Chest harness

Adventure Verticale Spelshoulder

Footloop

Petzl Footcord

Pack

Imlay Heaps (Class A, B)

Rodcle Racer (Class C)

Wetsuit (highly dependent on ambient air temp and frequency of swims)

5/3mm full (Class C)

3mm farmer (Class B-C)

Kneepads

Dirty Daves

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Cave & Canyon hybrid

Only vertical SRT gear is listed. Other gear should follow guidelines from specific sport.

Harness

Singing Rock Canyon XP

Adventure Verticale Mazarin (Some find it uncomfortable. Make sure to try it first.)

Cowstail

Single 11m dynamic rope. Figure-8 at harness connected to link at waist, grapevine knots at carabiners.

Cowstail Carabiners

Petzl Vertigo Wire-lock

Decender

Modern canyon-appropriate descender

Hand Ascender

Petzl Basic

Chest Ascender

Petzl Croll L

Avoid Basic (wrong geometry), and avoid Croll S (they're too small for downclimbing on fuzzy fat caving ropes)

Chest harness

Adventure Verticale Spelshoulder

Footloop

Petzl Footcord

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Mine Exploring

Helmet

Petzl Vertex Vent (Avoid ultralight foam climbing helmets)

Gloves

Red Steer Chilly Grips (cold dry environment)

Dish gloves (cold wet environments)

nitrile coated cotton (warm dry environment)

Whistle

TriPower

Headlamp

Zebralight

List of caving worthy, production and purpose built headlamps

Shoes

Any hightop with sticky Rubber and lug sole. (Avoid low-tops, waste rock is sharp and stored in piles)

Waders (For wading in acidic mine affected waste water)

Harness

Petzl SuperAvanti

Cowstail

Two separate lengths of 11m dynamic rope. Offset figure-8 knots at harness, grapevine knots at carabiner.

Cowstail Carabiners

Petzl Vertigo Wire-lock

Decender

Petzl Stop (Making an assumption that 8mm rope will not be employed)

Decender Carabiner

Petzl Freino (a mate to the Petzl Stop)

Hand Ascender

Petzl Ascension "Left"

Avoid the Right-handed version, the left is correct for most people.

Avoid devices which require two hands to take on and off the rope.

Chest Ascender

Petzl Croll L

Avoid Basic (wrong geometry), and Croll S (they're too small for downclimbing on fuzzy fat caving ropes)

Chest harness

Adventure Verticale Spelshoulder

Footloop

Petzl Footcord

Pack

PMI Large PVC Gear Pack (big)

Exposure suit

Adventure Verticale Cave suit (Wet & Cold environments)

Dickies (Cool & Dry environments)

Kneepads

Dirty Dave's

Elbowpads

None

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Other disclaimers

Other variables that might affect an expert's gear recommendations include:

• Specialty training in underground rescue, SAR, swiftwater, medical, communications to name a few. (Rigging gear, radios, first aid, PFD, harness, helmet...)
• Comfort level with water and weather (Thick vs. Thin wetsuit vs. quick dry clothing)
• Height, weight, fat percentage, and level of desired personal comfort. (Harness size/style, shoe fitment, backpacks comfort level with heat/cold)
• Breadth of exposure to gear and their ability to borrow or spend money on trying new items.