ACA Canyon Rating System

Explanation of the ACA Canyon Rating System, including technical terrain, rope work and water classifications.

ACA Skills Checklists

Skills Checklists covering recreational canyoneering skill levels: Core; Sovereign, Aspirant; Assistant Canyon Leader; Canyon Leader

Skills Checklists covering pro canyoneering skill levels: Assistant Pro Guide; Lead Pro Guide

These Skills Checklists will guide you through the sequence of skills acquisition. Seek out training that will provide you with those skills in roughly the order recommended in the checklists. Consider our Skills Checklists as your road map to becoming a more competent, safe and self-reliant canyoneer.
Click on the desired list below:

Core

Sovereign Canyoneer

Canyon Leader Skills:
Aspirant Canyon Leader
Assistant Canyon Leader
Canyon Leader

Pro Guide Skills:
Assistant Pro Guide
Lead Pro Guide

All ACA Skills Checklists

Skills Checklist in Spanish

Skills Checklists also provide you with a useful objective tool for evaluating potential canyoneering partners. Experience does not necessarily equate to competence. Stories are all too common about a beginner who trusted a partner who claimed to be an expert because he/she had descended 20, 50 or 100 canyons, but when things went wrong, the "expert" didn't have the technical skills required to deal with the situation. Instead of being impressed (and trusting) by the number of canyons your prospective partner claims to have descended, use the skills checklists to quiz them about their actual technical competence.

ACA Canyon Resume

Spreadsheet you can use to record your canyoneering adventures and keep track of your training progression.

Canyoneering Signals

Common whistle and hand signals for canyoneering. Trim and laminate the sheet to take it with you on all of your canyoneering adventures. Be sure to make extra copies for your canyoneering partners, too.

Canyons • Canyoneering Primer

Created as a joint effort by many members of the canyoneering community, this informative 24-page booklet addresses canyoneering safety, trip planning, style and ethics. More than 40,000 copies in circulation.

Cañones • Fondo de Cañonismo

La versión en Español de nuestra popular Folleto Cañones.

Mechanical Advantage Primer

An introduction to mechanical advantage systems used in technical rescue.

 

ACA Incident Report

Print this form, or use it as a guide to report incidents on our ACA Facebook Page or Facebook Regional Groups

Copyright Notice

A substantial portion of the material available on these pages was created by the ACA. Some rights reserved. The ACA's work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. For more information, visit:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

The ACA offers this material to you in the spirit of a gift. The ACA chose a Creative Commons copyright, which allows you to freely share this material for any non-commercial purpose. That means you can make photocopies, put it on your own blog, and so forth, as long as you don’t sell it or use it to carry advertising. You must also provide attribution so that people who want to find more of the ACA's work can do so.

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Gallery

Visit the ACA Canyon Gallery to browse canyoneering photos from courses, rendezvous, meetups and photo contests.

What people are saying …

What people are saying …

"I am really impressed with not only the skills and techniques but the fact that you put together such a great course. You did a great job and I learned a lot."

July 5, 2018

"It's unbelievable how much we have learned in one week. Great teaching and patience displayed by all instructors. Great body of knowledge taught. Good hands-on experience. Good pace and sequence of topics."

July 14, 2019

"Just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that I really enjoyed your course. Thanks for your patience. You are a great teacher. I have found in the past that just because one has the knowledge on something, doesn't mean they have the ability to convey that information to others in a way they can retain it. You actually have the gift. I know I retained more that I thought I would. It was a pleasure spending those three days under your guidance."

May 28, 2015

"I took one of the classes AZ Rock and Canyon offered and can not say enough about it! Tom and Jeremiah went over everything and why we do things the way we do so you have a better understanding of everything. After their class and small rappels, we met up the next day to do a canyon and put into practice what we learned with three trained people helping us along the way. I give them 10 stars out of 5! Take their classes, you will not be disappointed. I have also told several people about their gear and they love it!" - Brandon Guard

March 17, 2021

"This was a great opportunity for me to get exposure to a myriad of new techniques for use in future canyoneering exploits. The experience and perspective of the instructors added another dimension and contributed greatly to the value of the course."

May 28, 2015