Swiftwater Canyoneering Course – Kern County, CA

Swiftwater Canyoneering, Class C Canyons – Kern County, CA

This is America’s first, original, Swiftwater course designed specifically for canyoneers! Tuition includes camping, elaborate handouts, and a Certificate of Completion!  It will begin at 7am each day and will finish around 3:00pm on Friday and Saturday, and at 5:00pm on Sunday.

This course will be challenging … and empowering!

Canyons with strong current, water volume and hydraulics pose dangers that dry-ish canyons (Class ‘A’) and low-flow or standing-water canyons (Class ‘B’) do not.  This course provides skills, knowledge and experiential training FOR exactly that type of environment, IN exactly that type of environment.  We’ve taken the relevant skills from a Swiftwater Rescue Course and combined them with the relevant skills for Canyoneering in Class ‘C’ canyons and have produced this hybrid Swiftwater Canyoneering Course!

You must provide your own transportation to and from the location; you must provide your own PPE including your standard canyoneering gear (harness, helmet, hardware, etc), AND a full wetsuit (4/3 preferred) and a Type 3 PFD.  Uber Adventures will provide the ropes and all training equipment.

Prerequisites:  This course cannot be your first foray into the sport of canyoneering.  The skills and methods in this course are a supplement to previous training.  While we recommend that you have taken Uber Adventures Technical Canyoneering Course (ACE-L1) AND at least one of the Uber Adventures Advanced Canyoneering (ACE-L2), or Canyon Essentials (ACE-L3), or Canyon Rescue (ACE-L4) courses, exceptions can be made by request if 1) you have taken a thorough series of other APPROVED courses, or 2) you have SIGNIFICANT canyoneering experience, or 3) you plead your case well! (exceptions must be approved by Uber Adventures … please contact us!)

IN ADDITION to the above technical requirements, you MUST BE A STRONG SWIMMER!  This course does not teach you how to swim.

Skills, Techniques, Topics covered include:

• Rope Management in Deep or Swiftwater
• Anchor Access and Challenges
• Belays & Rappel Methods, Air Pockets
• Specific Gear, Handling & Utility
• Tensioned Diagonals, Tyrolean Traverses
• Potholes, Deviations, Ascending
• Slides & Jumps, Surface Tension, River Crossings
• Hydrology: Holes, Rapids, Laminars, Eddies
• Defensive/Aggressive Swimming, Ferry Angles
• Strainers, Sieves, Entrapments
• Rescue: Towed Victim, Pendulum Belay, Throw Bags/Rope
• Communication, Safety, CFS, LNT
• Hypothermia, Submersion

Tuition: This 3-Day Swiftwater Canyoneering Course is $595 per individual. The course fee is non-refundable but may be put toward a future class during the same year if 7-day notice is given cancelling your participation in this course.  Please read more course/company policies here.

Included with tuition is all instruction and all group Canyoneering equipment, i.e.: ropes, webbing, rope bags, rapides, rigging, etc. … and a Certificate of Completion!!