Drysuit in the Shower

[Chip]

The knees and butt of my drysuit tend to get muddy. I remember reading one should keep a clean drysuit to extend the life of the suit. Only once a year do I actually put the drysuit in the washing machine. The rest of the season I take it in the shower.

The drysuit often ends up there anyway. I hang over the shower rod to dry and air out. Last few years, a scrub brush and container of diluted tech wash have also taken up residence in the shower. When the suit looks muddy while I'm showering, I drag it in the shower and scrub, then rinse, the muddy spots. Then it goes back on the shower rod.

I wondered if anybody else's drysuit gets the shower treatment. It would actually make a lot of sense to just wear the drysuit home from the river and go immediately into the shower, but that's never happened. After a day-long outing with the "small child trying to strangle me," i.e., a gasket around my neck, I take off at least the top half of the drysuit by the time I get in the car. But, I think it'd be easier to wash while I'm wearing it.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I never paddled or sat in mud in my dry suit days. Rocks, snow, sand, salty ocean . . . yes. I did get my dry suit dirty but never used the shower.

On fresh water trips, I had a brush or rag in my van and would scrub the suit bottom a bit while wearing it at the take-out. Since I only paddled salt water in summer, I'd just hose off the suit and booties outside when I got home or to the campsite.

 

[ppine]

Good idea.
I use a hose. The best way to test out new paddling clothes is to try them in a known environment. I have used wet suits in swimming pools in the off season with a thermometer. I started carrying a thermometer for running rivers and wakeboarding early in the season. It makes a big difference to know that the water temp is 63 and not 52. Dress for immersion, and learn what works best in different temps.

 

[Chip]

I never paddled or sat in mud in my dry suit days.

First the feet get muddy. And then I sit or lie down in the boat, usually to fit under some log or bridge. That gets me muddy.

 

[Chip]

… I started carrying a thermometer for running rivers and wakeboarding early in the season. It makes a big difference to know that the water temp is 63 and not 52. Dress for immersion, and learn what works best in different temps.

I carry a meat thermometer so I can know the water temp. Maybe a new thread?

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I never paddled or sat in mud in my dry suit days.

First the feet get muddy. And then I sit or lie down in the boat, usually to fit under some log or bridge. That gets me muddy.

Different environments, probably. 95% of the time I wore dry suits I was paddling intermediate to hard whitewater from West Virginia to Maine. Nothing cleans off a dry suit like dumping in Mixmaster and swimming through Maytag.

In fact, I was the first person in my club to get a dry suit, which happened to be a two-piece suit. My friends were skeptical that a dry suit, especially the two-piecer, could keep one warm and dry in March-April snow melt mountain rivers in northern New England. So, to demonstrate and test, I jumped into the Contoocook River in New Hampshire and washed down about 200 yards. I emerged perfectly warm and dry. And clean.

The other 5% of the time I wore dry suits was when sea kayaking in the cold ocean. There, I would get salty and sandy. That was rinse time at a hose or faucet at the campground or home. Using a shower is perfectly reasonable; I just don't recall ever doing it.

I don't recall ever using a dry suit for flat water trips. I usually only trip overnight in warmer times and climes, in which case I bring a full change of clothes and perhaps wear just the "overall" bottoms of my dry suit.

 

[alsg]

During cold water paddling season, my dry suit lives in one of our unused showers. If it is really dirty or smelly, it goes into the tub with a capful of the appropriate cleaner.

 

[Chip]

I started out a ww canoeist and still managed to find mud. I remember thinking, "they don't tell you about the mud," when you are getting into it. Often the trail to and the put in were muddy, and the mud came in the boat with me. But agree, there's a lot less mud and more rock on the ww rivers.

I canoed Maryland winters for many years before I had a dry or wet suit. Mentors preached to be prepared with a change of gear, and stay off big rivers in the winter. On smaller rivers you aren't that far from the bank and often you can just stand up and walk out. When I finally got a drysuit my capsize recovery was so much easier. Just dump the boat out and hop back in. No need to change clothes, always a laborious process when peeling out of wet gear and then trying to pull on the dry.

 

[alsg]

I started out a ww canoeist and still managed to find mud. I remember thinking, "they don't tell you about the mud," when you are getting into it. Often the trail to and the put in were muddy, and the mud came in the boat with me. But agree, there's a lot less mud and more rock on the ww rivers.

I canoed Maryland winters for many years before I had a dry or wet suit. Mentors preached to be prepared with a change of gear, and stay off big rivers in the winter. On smaller rivers you aren't that far from the bank and often you can just stand up and walk out. When I finally got a drysuit my capsize recovery was so much easier. Just dump the boat out and hop back in. No need to change clothes, always a laborious process when peeling out of wet gear and then trying to pull on the dry.

I swam last Sunday on Whitehorse Rapid in the Potomac below Harper's Ferry. Probably 500 ft to either bank. Water temp 38 F; air temp around 50 F. Not an issue with a drysuit and good merino base layers. Ended up reentering on a mid river rock outcrop. Did have some help wrangling the canoe while I swam.

 

[Chip]

I swam last Sunday on Whitehorse Rapid in the Potomac below Harper's Ferry. Probably 500 ft to either bank. Water temp 38 F; air temp around 50 F. Not an issue with a drysuit and good merino base layers. Ended up reentering on a mid river rock outcrop. Did have some help wrangling the canoe while I swam.

That is the kind of run the old guys stayed off in the winter. Some used wet suits but none of them had drysuits. "Old guys." Huh, they're gone, and now I'm the old guy (but with a drysuit!).

How'd you know the water temperature?

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Whitehorse Rapid in the Potomac

Not trivial. Difficulty likely depends on level. Here it is at 2.7 feet:

It's helpful to figure out what you did wrong when you dump. It often boils down to not understanding the hydrodynamics of the river sufficiently, how they affect your canoe, and how your particular canoe (they differ) will react to certain hydrodynamics. Dry suits allow more aggressive and faster learning than before. No one really wanted to swim much in a wetsuit and certainly not in the wool days.

 

[alsg]

Not trivial. Difficulty likely depends on level. Here it is at 2.7 feet:

It's helpful to figure out what you did wrong when you dump. It often boils down to not understanding the hydrodynamics of the river sufficiently, how they affect your canoe, and how your particular canoe (they differ) will react to certain hydrodynamics. Dry suits allow more aggressive and faster learning than before. No one really wanted to swim much in a wetsuit and certainly not in the wool days.

Like a lot of rapids, this one increase with difficulty at certain levels before it washes out. Last weekend there was a lot more/higher wave action. A diagonal curler flipped me.

 

[alsg]

That is the kind of run the old guys stayed off in the winter. Some used wet suits but none of them had drysuits. "Old guys." Huh, they're gone, and now I'm the old guy (but with a drysuit!).

How'd you know the water temperature?

The USGS Point of Rocks Gauge just down stream of Whitehorse has water temperature data.

 

[ppine]

Nothing to it. Glad you were wearing the right clothes. Anything below 50 degrees is pretty cold for water temperature.
I grew up near Great Falls. We never paddled it in canoes in the early days, only above it.
White Horse Rapids on the Deschutes River in Oregon is really long and bony with all kinds of wrap rocks.