GEAR~ Canyoneering Shoes

My favorite shoe is the Nike Air Riovero. They are super light, designed like a true hiking shoe with a comfortable footbed & rocker, and with super sticky rubber with an excellent sole design for edging and bouldering. The Non-absorbent upper combined with the three instep drain holes keep the shoe light, comfortable, and supportive. The drawbacks are that a) they are very difficult to find in retail stores so they are tough to try on, b) the stitching on the upper of the new models (compared to the testers two years ago) is less substantial and is destroyed after only one canyon. This can be fixed by pre-seamgripping the stitching on the upper before canyoning in them, or barge cementing the loose material after the fact. Also, the shoes don’t breath terribly well and can be a bit hot in the full sun (they are black). You can find these on the internet for about $59 these days. I wear an 8.5 street shoe and a 9 in these – I usually hike in a thin coolmax running sock and then switch to 3mm neo’s for the water.

I found the 5.10 Canyoneer to be a servicable shoe – the mesh at the outside of my corns wore out quickly but this seems a minor flaw. The support is a little floppy and for all the drawbacks of the plastic buckles, they are the most secure fastening system for wet canyons. I think the Canyoneers get a bad rap – these are great shoes for the price, and mind held up to almost two years of hard canyoning.

The Nike ACG Teewinot is also a great shoe – better for dry canyons but good enough in wet canyons if you don’t mind the weight they take on, nor the lack of support, being a low top.

The 5.10 Water Tennies were a nice idea but I found they bite horribly into my heel and have even less support than the canyoneers. Not recommended at all.