**1. Canyoning Overview and Locations:**
– Canyoning combines outdoor activities like rock climbing, hiking, swimming, and rappelling.
– Techniques include walking, scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling, and swimming.
– Involves technical descents with abseils, ropework, climbing, jumps, and swims.
– Typically done in remote, rugged settings requiring wilderness travel skills.
– Canyons are usually cut into limestone, sandstone, granite, or basalt, offering various routes worldwide.
– Popular canyoning locations include Nepal (Sundarijal, Pokhara, Jalabire), Vietnam (Dalat), Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, the UK (Wales, Scotland, Cumbria, Yorkshire), Switzerland (Ticino), the USA (Colorado Plateau), Australia (Blue Mountains), and South Africa.
**2. Hazards and Safety Measures in Canyoning:**
– Hazards include inaccessibility, high water flow, flash floods, and temperature-related illnesses.
– Authorities in Switzerland have set high safety standards for canyoning.
– Safety measures involve considering hidden dangers like flash floods post-wildfires, implementing high safety standards, and using safety labels.
– Canyoning companies need to prevent accidents by understanding factors that can trigger flash floods.
**3. Challenges in Canyoning:**
– Keeper potholes in U.S. southwest deserts are circular pits challenging to escape from.
– Canyoneers use hooks and specialized equipment to overcome keeper potholes.
– Very narrow slots narrower than humans pose challenges in climbing and navigation.
– Exposure to water-borne diseases like Weil’s Disease is a concern in canyoning.
– Rockfall incidents, including falling rocks like chockstones, are common hazards.
– Becoming lost in remote canyon areas due to limited trails is a significant challenge.
**4. Safety Concerns and Precautions:**
– Canyoning involves risks like flash floods, temperature-related illnesses, and water-borne diseases.
– Safety measures include adhering to high safety standards, considering hidden dangers, and using safety labels.
– Escaping keeper potholes and navigating very narrow slots require specialized techniques and equipment.
– Exposure to water-borne diseases can be mitigated by avoiding water ingestion and showering after canyoning.
– Falling rocks and getting lost in remote areas are common safety concerns in canyoning.
**5. Education and Training in Canyoning:**
– With the increasing popularity of canyoneering, more people seek skills for safe descents.
– Reputable organizations offer classes and certifications covering basic and advanced canyoneering skills.
– Training programs include rappelling, rope work, navigation, anchor building, rescue training, wilderness first aid, and swift water canyons.
– Professional canyoning guide training is available globally through organizations like CIC, ICO Pro, and ACA.
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Canyoning (canyoneering in the United States, kloofing in South Africa) is a sport that combines several outdoor sports like rock climbing, hiking, swimming, and rappelling. A canyoneer travels down canyons using a variety of techniques that may include other outdoor activities such as walking, scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling (rappelling), and swimming.
Although non-technical descents such as hiking down a canyon (canyon hiking) are often referred to as canyoneering, the terms canyoning and canyoneering are more often associated with technical descents — those that require abseils (rappels) and ropework, technical climbing or down-climbing, technical jumps, and/or technical swims.
Canyoning is frequently done in remote and rugged settings and often requires navigational, route-finding, and other wilderness travel skills.
Canyons that are ideal for canyoning are often cut into the bedrock stone, forming narrow gorges with numerous drops, beautifully sculpted walls, and sometimes spectacular waterfalls. Most canyons are cut into limestone, sandstone, granite, or basalt, though other rock types are found. Canyons can be very easy or extremely difficult, though emphasis in the sport is usually on aesthetics and fun rather than pure difficulty. A wide variety of canyoning routes are found throughout the world.
Canyoning gear includes climbing hardware, static ropes, helmets, wetsuits, and specially designed shoes, packs, and rope bags. While canyoneers have used and adapted climbing, hiking, and river running gear for years, more and more specialized gear is invented and manufactured as canyoning popularity increases.