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If you’ve kept up with any part of the outdoor news in the last couple of years, then you’ve likely noticed that previously fringe outdoor sports are on the upward swing in popular culture. With the mainstream rise of documentaries like Alex Honnold’s “Free Solo” and cult-classic films like “Valley Uprising,” the outdoor world has experienced somewhat of a Renaissance, and with it has come a slew of new and interested enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, too often the outdoor world can be a place where the lingo, the gear and the wealth of experience of the pros have served as an obstacle to those looking to learn and engage on a beginner’s level. In the world of outdoor sports, things like climbing, backpacking, and kayaking can feel like exclusive clubs reserved for those who already know and understand the language. But the reality is, those are all just different outdoor activities, open to anyone who is willing to give them a shot.

Here at The Dyrt, we’re working to open the outdoor world to everyone, one campground review at a time. To help with that, we’ve created this quick overview of one of the most important tools in the outdoor world: the carabiner.

Although commonly found in everyday life, the carabiner’s true functionality is on full display during a variety of outdoor sports.

If you’ve never had the chance to use one, things can get pretty confusing. Is it for climbing? For hanging on? For attaching things? For holding your water bottle? The answer is yes, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Generally speaking, the carabiner is a coupling link with a safety closure, meaning it’s basically a tool that’s designed to keep you safe, consisting of a curved body with a straight or curved bar known as the gate that opens and closes.

The locking or closure mechanism on every carabiner is meant to allow for things to be attached to it without the fear of them coming off. Unlike a traditional coupling link, which has no closure point, carabiners offer easy clipping ability and a secure waypoint for whoever might need one.

That said, there are a few different kinds of carabiners, each of which has a slightly different use.

This is the carabiner we’ve all attached to our keys at one point or another. It’s called a wire carabiner because the locking mechanism is a wire loop that usually hooks onto the nose of the carabiner. (The nose of the carabiner is the place where the gate opens and closes). This is the carabiner you might be picturing if you’ve never gone climbing or used one in an industrial setting.

These carabiners are meant to be convenient devices for keychains, water bottles and minor household uses. They can be great for car campers in a pinch who need to hook a rain tarp to their shelter or for tenters needing a way to carry all of their gear, but they’re not ideal for holding much more than your supplies.

These types of carabiners have what’s called an open-lock safety closure, meaning all you have to do is press on the straight edge of the carabiner to get it to open. While safe in terms of keeping a tarp secure, they aren’t safe enough to hold your body weight. They should never be used during activities such as climbing, where your gear plays a large role in determining the level of safety you experience on the wall.

That said, keychain carabiners can be a fun way to carry the outdoors with you wherever you go, and they can be used in a variety of low-stakes situations to make things easier.

A “straight gate” carabiner is a style of carabiner that can be opened with pressure alone. Straight gaters are known for being easy to latch and operate on the go. Heavier duty versions of this carabiner can be used for climbing, particularly for hooking into a bolt, where the chances of accidental release of the locking gate are slim.

Straight gate carabiners are also found in sports like backpacking or kayaking, where the carabiner is relied upon for simpler duties, like hooking into a dock line or attaching a sled or tool to your pack. The straight gate style of carabiner can be seen as a semi-happy medium between the heavy duty wire gate carabiner and the wire carabiners that frequent keychains and outdoor shows.