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Attendance

Howard Holgate

Mike Williams

Mike Broome

Mathew Weiss

Ken Walsh

Michael Caslan

Robert Harris

Rachel Weinstock

Carlin Kartchner

Lisa Lorinzen

Peter Hertl

Martin G.

Old Business — None

New Business

–TriTrogs Calendar — A new one will be made, invitation of photo submissions is out.

– Grotto Trip – Need to determine a location

    Action: Lisa will contact Butler Cave

Trip Reports

– Ken, Weiss, and Lubin: Worley’s Cave, TN — photography trip
– Mike, Lisa, Peter, and Rob: Ram’s Head vertical practice (not really a cave trip)
– Pete & Mark: VAR: Sharp’s Cave and possibly a connection to My Cave (?)
– Carlin: Horseshoe Cave: Mapped ~ 860 ft, 2 leads left
– Robert & Rachel: Pig Hole, 120 ft entrance drop, through trip
– Mike & Lisa: Butler Cave Preserve, checked a sump, naked caving
– Ken & Martin: New River Cave, survey trip
 Upcoming Trips (All on calendar)
– ACC 35th Reunion: Perkins
– Grotto Trip
– Convention: Pennsylvania
– New River: June 8
Program
An  in depth look at the VBATS Mexico expedition trip to Golindrinas and other caves was presented by Mike and Lisa through multimedia including videos of rappels.

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Introductions/Attendees:
Mark Daughtridge, Carlin Kartchner., Ken Walsh., Howard Holgate,
Haden Holgate, Andy Koch, Mathew Lubin , Ava Pope

Program Part 1: TriTrogs Get Loopy
To start the meeting Ken set up a surveying course outside the museum, as people showed up they used instruments and flashlights to complete the course to the best of their abilities.

Old business:           
We gave the instruments and helmet to Tanya, she was extremely appreciative.  Says thanks to everyone who contributed.
We still need to get a canopy.

New Business:
none

Trip Reports:
Carlin went to orientation to cave rescue, started Friday night through Sunday.  Mock rescue on Sunday, 3 patients needed to be rescued. Carlin was part of the first hasty search team.  Communications were an interesting challenge.  Two patients were unresponsive and the other was supposed to have a broken leg (cursing a lot).  They were in Bundy’s number two cave.

Ken delivered the Worleys cave map to the landowners.  Followed Carlin around for a little bit in search of Doan’s Cave but gave up and decided to head to Rob and Rachel Weinstock to finish Lover’s Leap survey.  Needed 5 steep shots to get up into the ceiling.  Rob was scared by a spider and screamed in a girly way.  Ken took them down to a dig with a rock hammer, dug it out, there was about a 6 foot drop, Rob went through and came back out, Ken sketched the room.  Outside of the cave there were ~ 30 hawks in the trees, very cool to see. And it was sunny! Mark thinks maybe the hawks were speed dating.  Ken and his group also went to the Saltville Museum in Saltville — he highly recommends it.

There were 9 of us at Tanya’s that weekend, 4 people went looking for Doan’s but couldn’t find it.
Ava and Tanya talked to landowners early in the day and got permission to survey a small cave that had a giant raccoon in it!  It was super scary.

Andy went to Cumberland caverns a week or two ago, it’s a commercial cave but peaked his interest in caves, big room with music and snack bar, cool formations, there’s a guided walking tour that takes ~ 1 hr.  It’s owned by religious people so at the end there’s a light show with astronauts reading the bible.  The previous evening they did the “adventure tour”, did ~ 2 hr loop.  Saw lots of stuff and it was really cool.  Now him and his friends are excited about caving!

Upcoming trips:
March 29-31 = Easter – Grand Caverns restoration weekend, cleaning formations, regraveling paths, etc. Free lunch, Ken is looking for someone to go with.
May 17-19 = spring VAR
Ken started surveying New River Cave back in the 90s, but now will have the opportunity to finish it up.  Map has been drafted, Ken has been asked to lead trips back in there to clean up and finish up survey, resurvey a little bit.  Going to try to get trips up there the 1st and 3rd weekends of the months. Hopefully the first trip will be in April? He’ll definitely need people to help out.
Break:
Program Part 2:  TriTrogs see that it’s hard to get loopy
During the discussion of other business Ken analyzed the results from the survey earlier in the evening and then gave a brief presentation on the basics of survey, some tricks, and what makes it tricky.
Here the results you’ve been patiently anticipating all month long!  Carlin requests that no one be judged for their caving abilities based on these results.

 

The moral of the story is – being able to close loops is really important and really difficult, especially with short high angle shots (and stray magnetic fields!)

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Introductions/Attendees:
Martin G., Mark D., Pete H., Dianna G., Jacob J., Carlin K.,
Ken W., Rob the floating head (aka 
Space Lord), Howard H. came too!
Old business:     
We discussed the minutes from the officer’s meeting
In response to the officers deciding that the membership
list be removed from the website some people would like hard copies of it or
perhaps PDF copies of it.  Decided
we would talk to Mark Little about how to best go about disseminating member
info
Martin finally received his awards from the X-mas party, two
thumbs off award for his uncanny ability to slice his fingers while doing
seemingly harmless tasks and also the Youth Group Leader Award (for his
demonstration of the delicate and polite use of very important words they’ve probably
never heard before!)
New Business:
Discussed giving the instruments and helmet to Tanya
Dianna brought some old stuff caving publications for us
young folk to fight over
Trip Reports:
Higgenbothms # 4 with Martin, Ken, Jacob and Erika
They got pulled over in the hotel parking lot for making an
unsignaled turn, but escaped the wrath of the law despite a lack of proof of
registration and insurance
Jacob says it was a very pretty cave, cool formations, set
up 7 or 8 good shots
Jacob was excited for the opportunity to take his car off-roading
Ken posted pics on the web and photoshopped them a little
Carlin discussing his trip this past weekend to Smith County
Carlin, Jacob, Dave D., Dawson, and James Armstrong (new
guy)
Originally Carlin and Jacob were going to go
ridgewalking/exploring Wythe county trying to find new stuff, but Thursday
night Dave D. hopped on the trip, decided to switch to Buchanan Salt
Peter.  Landowner was already at
the cave, left Carlins at 6 am Saturday, started at marble cave then to Buch.
Salt Peter.  Very spectacular,
large passages, one little climb and one little crawl.  (WHY DO WE GO TO COLDSINK !?!?!) Scouted
some other stuff after the cave, hung out with Tanya in the evening, headed
back Sunday
Rob went to SERA and Cumberland caverns, it was a commercial
cave with lots of passage for more exploration (38 miles? Not sure if that’s
the right number). He met a guy who was on storm stories for being in a
flooding cave who he was trapped and had to get rescued, he thought it was cool
to talk to him. He went with Lee Olson from South Carolina.  Used a figure 8 for some drops it was
fun. 
Ava explored some old aqueducts underneath New York
City.  That was very cool.
Diana brought up using dowsing sticks to find things (like
caves/holes/water etc.).  Ava was
very skeptical but Ken thought it was extremely funny and entertaining to annoy
Ava by continually bringing up the topic. 
For more info on the lack of scientific evidence supporting dowsing see
here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowsing
Upcoming trips:
March 8-10 = orientation to cave rescue
March 22-24th = Surveying in Smyth County –
possibly Doanes?
March 29-31 = Easter – Grand Caverns restoration weekend
May 17-19 = spring VAR
Rob may try to get a new castle murder hole on Easter
weekend—keep bothering him so he actually does it!
Ken started surveying New River Cave back in the 90s, but now
will have the opportunity to finish it up.  Map has been drafted, Ken has been asked to lead trips back
in there to clean up and finish up survey, resurvey a little bit.  Going to try to get trips up there the
1st and 3rd weekends of the months. Hopefully the first trip will be in April? He’ll
definitely need people to help out.
Break:
Program: 
Carlin gave a presentation on things he doesn’t know and
isn’t allowed to share about his experiences in the area where there are no
caves to speak of.  It was called
Caving in Arizona.
Then the group headed to Armadillo Grill for a final
farewell to Jacob.  We’ll miss him
a ton!  

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02-04-2013
TriTrogs Officer Meeting Agenda
Carlin’s Apartment
Meeting started at 7:05 p.m.

Mark D, Mark L., Carlin K., Mike B. and Ava P. in attendance

Agenda:

1) What we want covered in general meetings/the generic agenda. It has been suggested we start our meetings with the program rather than end with it.
Carlin likes the idea—better time management, will help keep the other stuff from dragging on
Mike would like things to start on time
Mark D. suggests sending agenda out ahead of time to encourage timeliness
Ava- would newcomers be more interested if we have a program first? Maybe a set time limit on programs?
Mark L. – maybe newcomers would not be enticed by presentations first, would rather interact with grotto members more, important to do introductions with new people
Set a time limit on trip reports?  We will do a trip report survey initially to establish appropriate time limit for each meeting.

It was decided that we would tentatively try a new order of operations as follows (with a 30 min suggested limit on programs):
Introductions from 7:30 to 7:40, then program, then everything else

2) Program ideas for 2013 — Need 10 total, 30 minute max?
Tentative ideas for the year (not chronological):
Carlin on Arizona
Carlin on Cold Sink
Mike and Lisa on Mexico
Peter on Caravan Etiquette (we think this is a joke but not sure)
Ken on Cartography?
Cave Geology? – Ava will email geology professor, or if anyone else has connections let one of the officers know
Danny on first aid? Mark D. will ask him.
Mark has a NOVA film on caves, or maybe film from NSS library
Mark (interest in Fungus presentation?)
Outside person on something cave related via skype? Possibly Will Orndorff?

3) Grotto trip date and destination
Carlin suggests June/July for grotto trip.  For the annual grotto trip officers decided on the weekend of July 13-14. For now we’re planning on Union Cave (will ask Ken about getting access).
If Union doesn’t work out then possibly Bone-Norman.  Camping options include Dave D.’s place in WV or other yet-to-be-determined campgrounds outside of Lewisburg.

5) Location and date preferences for a cleanup trip
Based on dates for other events/trips October 19/20th seems like it will work
We will talk to Tanya about ideas, would like to keep it in Smyth County
4) Update from the loaner gear and library custodian (any needs expressed)
From Mike: The new Princeton Tec headlamps have been loaned out and taken on a few trips, and so far them seem to be working out pretty well.  We might want to get one more so we have the same number of loaner headlamps as helmets (4).
Mike will order another one. (this has now been taken care of)
6) PO box — should we eliminate it?
It was agreed on that we do not need a PO box.
Mark L. will take care of getting rid of the PO box and have stuff temporarily forwarded to his address
Mike will remove the PO box info from the website
10) Donations to charities this year
Officers decided that the annual donation to the museum will be $100
12) How should we use our grotto funds?
From Mark L: We have suggestions for charitable contributions every year. But I would like more discussion of how we can use our dues income in the service of members, and in ways that will promote more caving and more participation in the grotto.
Other officers agree, use grotto money for caving(ie. Grotto trip!)/purchasing group gear (replacement canopy, lights, etc.) to facilitate more caving!
7) Vertical training program?
Things that would be included:
A monthly grotto meeting dedicated to intro to vertical techniques to spur interest in getting people vertically active, this would be followed by several outside meetings to get familiar with on-rope experience.  We would like to do this once the weather gets a little bit better (possibly have the program at the April meeting? We will talk to Pete about setting up at his place)
Some topics would include:
Knotwork with gloves/without gloves?
NSS vertical skills checklist?
8) Plans for the NSS Convention          
Get a canopy before convention- Ken found a good one that will actually fit in cars without much hassle. Ken can you go ahead and order it?  I guess I should send you an email.
Officers planning to attend:
Carlin is going
Mark D. is going
Others are not sure
9) Plans for and status of the web site
Notes from Mike B.(webmaster):
1) One thing I’d like to do is to add in more social media.  Add a Twitter account.
Use the various media channels – web site, FB, Google+, Twitter – to announce meetings with more lead time.  For that to be effective, we’d need to know what the presentation topics are at least a couple weeks or a month in advance.  But I think this would help keep people reminded and interested in coming to the meetings.
Mike is going to take a stab at the social media aspect of advertising our grotto, maybe Rob would be interested in helping since he’s into facebook and could help remotely?
2) Membership list on the website? Do we want this? Is it too much to keep up with? Right now are names and numbers from 2009.
Officers agreed that we should remove the list from the website in an effort to keep the site up to date
3) Get constitution by-laws updated on the website, we’re not sure if they actually got changed.
Mike has latest ones, he will send them out and we can agree on them.  Mark (not sure which one) suggested
having a copy of the membership form on the website and having it fill-inable online.  Mike will look into this.
4) Maybe remove the flaming pumpkin from the website blog?
We think it scares people.  Officers agreed to remove it, Mike will take care of the flaming pumpkin removal
11) From Mark L. addressing membership:
Is there anything more we can do to attract new people to visit our meetings or come on a caving trip with us? Are there things we could do to encourage people who have visited our meetings or who have tried a caving trip to take the next step and join the grotto? How do we do this? Make beginner trips and hope they come? Or find beginners and play around with them.
Officers will try some new outside advertisement– Ava will contact The Rock Club at NC State and put up flyers up at climbing gym at UNC. Tell your friends how cool we are!
12) Other business????
Someone should build a squeeze box, any volunteers?

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            We
started off the trip by meeting at Carlin’s Friday after work – we were Jacob,
Carlin, Ken, Diana, and Ava.  The boys
rode up with Ken and girls rode in Diana’s car (boys smell bad anyway).  After quite a search we stopped for
food in Danville at an Italian place, Jo and Mimmas.  We recommend this for future groups looking for a decent meal
on the way to caves, it was delicious.

            After
food and coffee we headed down the road toward Rockbridge County, Va.  We made a last stop for gas, bathroom, and
beers in Lynchville just before midnight. 
Diana stepped in to use the restroom and not long after they turned off
all the lights and locked the doors! 
Luckily, (as might be expected of a caver heading to a caving event) she
had a headlamp on hand so continued to wash her face and came out (very much to
the surprise of the workers) a few minutes later.  We all had a laugh. 
VAR was ~ 20 minutes away down back roads.  We followed maps, gps, and finally the signs to get there.  Upon arrival there were several people
hanging around registration and sign ups for trips the next day.  Because we were so late most were trips
were full, but someone (maybe Bob?) recommended a couple of caves a little ways
north, Belles Valley Wet and Dry caves, for us to check out on our own.  

            We
decided to figure out the details in the morning and then headed toward the
back of the property to camp.  We set-up
tents and the grotto flag, had a beer, and chatted while scanning the
beautifully clear sky for shooting stars. 
Some of us saw several, Ken wasn’t having any luck so he went to
bed.  No less than 2 minutes after
he was in his tent we saw one that was so bright Diana had time to see its
reflection in the car window and turn around to see it!  Moral of the story: don’t go to bed.  Then, against our better judgment, we went
to bed.

            The
next morning Ken had the fixins for French toast and Diana brought fixins for
coffee (with a French press).  It
was a French morning.  Tanya found
us. We shared our breakfast with her and afterward Carlin helped move her tent
near the rest of us.  

            We
geared up and stopped for directions on the way out.  After some GPS difficulties we headed on the way (Carlin,
Jacob, Ken, Tanya, Diana, and Ava). 
There were lots of dirt roads, we were definitely in the middle of
nowhere.  Both caves were right on
the road so we parked at the intersection to get changed and went for the dry
cave first.  Carlin tried to take
some photos of the entrance but he didn’t have his SD card. He takes better
photos than I do so I loaned him mine.  Therefor, all photos are courtesy of Carlin (and also do not show him, but I promise he really did come along).
            Diana
and Jacob were the first ones in. It opened up into a little room and then to a
belly crawl a few yards long.  Then
on to kneeling passage with lots of rimstone pools with a few inches of water. 
 


We saw several bats on the way in.

  


We continued on to a small room in the
back, nothing too special.  Ken
thought there was a lead, Carlin checked it out and said no go.  So, naturally, Ken (the largest person
in the group) proceeded to shove himself feet first into the hole to see if Carlin
was right.  When he was chin deep in
mud he decided it didn’t go–that was the end.  Carlin took some nice photos of Jacob on the way out, Ken
helped with lighting.
               

            We
exited for the wet cave only to find more cavers at the parking area. They were
about to check out the dry cave too.  We were warned that the wet cave was REALLY wet and that we’d
go in, start swimming, and swim until we were too cold to swim anymore.  It started off in dry walking passage
for a few yards where we found a salamander and took pictures, then as expected
it got wet really quick.  We were
waist deep in 55 degree water almost immediately. 

Soon
we were seeing salamanders everywhere!
And wading in water that was approaching chest deep!  We were able to get up a little higher
to straddle the deep water by keeping feet and hands on the walls. The water
was relatively clear, clear enough to see to the bottom in some spots.  We followed the water upstream for
quite a ways, there was some nice flowstone and tons of salamanders.  So many that even I stopped pointing them out. They looked similar to cave salamanders but their coloring was more dull
than usual.  

            We
continued on, switching between swimming through, wading in, and straddling
over the water until Ken got to a point where he said we would have to duck
under and possibly get our heads/chests wet.  But, Carlin wanted to check it out and pushed through without
getting too wet (ie. he didn’t have to submerge his head).  The cave continued up a flowstone
waterfall to some rimstone pools and into walking passage.  The rest of the group followed.
We
saw a dead bat in the water, gross!  Then came to what appeared to be a sump, checked it to the
point that my right ear was very wet and very cold.  Decided not to push it so we headed back toward the entrance.  It was a lot of fun! Some of our packs
were less waterproof than others. 
On the way out Jacob was sending his swaygo pack sailing on top of the
water through people’s legs as they straddled the stream passage, others had
soaked lights and food that wasn’t as fun to watch.  We stopped near the entrance to take some photos, see
below.
 
Daily workout
 
Diana had just told Ken to close his mouth, he obeyed. 
 
 
No comment
  
Ken and Diana headed out
the way we came in, Carlin, Jacob, and I headed out the other entrance where we
could hear the other group of cavers. 
Jacob saw a froggy on the way out. 
            After
trying to convince the other group to get wet and check the cave out we headed
up the road a piece to scope out a few other holes in the side of the road.  None of them seemed to go so we headed
downhill towards the creek to look for another cave we’d heard about.  We didn’t find it but did make it to
the creek where we waded/swam upstream looking for the cave in the hillside
bank, no luck. 
Ken, Ava, and Diana traveling up the creek
 But, Jacob did find
an alligator snapping turtle! 
            On
the way back we were halted by a road block…of cows.  Seems they liked being out of the
pasture blocking the road better than life inside the fence.  We made it back for dinner, beers, and
a presentation about caving in Mexico by Tony Akers.  There was a nice campfire after the presentation.  Then we headed back to the tents to
look for shooting stars before we went to bed.  Ken saw 2!  In
the morning we packed up camp and Carlin attended part of the regional
meeting.  Then we headed toward
Lexington to find breakfast.  After
some trouble finding any open restaurants we found one, a place called Niko’s
(for future reference).
            Then,
at Ken’s suggestion, we made our way toward the Devil’s Marble yard to do some
hiking on the way home.  It was a nice
1.5 mile hike up to a huge boulder field on top of a mountain.  Solid boulders for almost ½ mile!   
Ken, Diana, Ava at on the Devil’s marbles
We climbed on every single one of them
and then kept going toward the summit. 
 We hiked back down and
headed for home.   We stopped for Mexican in Danville and
then back to Carlin’s.
            Seems
like everyone had a great time, I know I did.  Let’s go caving!

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Copenhaver’s conservation trip
            First,
travel back in time 2 days from Ken’s Worley’s survey trip report (he’s faster
than I am at getting things written up) to when Dave D., Dawson D., Jacob
Jackson, Ken Walsh, Dave T. and I all headed to Tanya’s house in Marion shortly
after work on Friday.   We
stayed up late talking caves and such so Ken and Dave D. let the rest of us
sleep in while they drove down to the cave in the early morn to scope out the
situation (we weren’t sure about the muddyness because of the evening storms
the night before).  Though the gate
was locked, they found that the cave was still there and the ground was dry
enough to drive down the hill. 
            After
they got back from the reconnaissance trip the 9 of us loaded up and went to
find pre-cave breakfast.  This was perhaps
the biggest struggle of the weekend. 
We finally found a breakfast-serving restaurant on the 4th
try.  After a hefty wait we were
served a delicious breakfast and were ready to get underground.  Tanya headed to the BP to find the key
to the gate while Carlin’s group headed a short piece down the road to Copenhaver’s.  The owner ended up letting us in while
we were waiting on Tanya and Dave D. for the key…oh well.  Then we drove down the hill, parked
near the cave and got geared up without muddying our feet (thanks to the protection
of the leftover tarp from the grotto canopy). 
            We
then headed to the cave to survey the workload.  There was lots of trash at the entrance–barrels, tons of
barbed wire tumbleweeds, scrap metal, etc.  Ken and Jacob worked on that intimidating mass while Dave D.
rigged the 2 part waterfall drop with the cable ladder. In the mean time
Carlin, Kyler, Dave T., Dawson, and I hauled up the trash from between the
entrance and the waterfall drop. 
Our biggest find in this area was a 50 gallon drum full of mud that we
managed to haul out on rope, what a treasure!  After the waterfall was rigged Dave T. and I headed down to
scope out the trash below.  Dave
wanted to free climb the second part of the drop so without realizing what he
was doing he kicked a large rock down that was preventing the cable ladder from
sliding into a crack. I was not fond of the free climb idea so I found a small
boulder at the second drop and rolled it into the crack to block it so I could
continue down on the cable ladder without difficulty.  Shortly after, Carlin and Kyler headed down the ladder to
help with the trash.  

            In
addition to the buckets we brought along for hauling trash, the cave graciously
supplied us with several big blue farm buckets that had washed in.  One of them had landed next to a
massive mound of mud covered barbed wire and fencing so after pulling it out of
the salamander pool (with many larval stage salamanders of some kind!) I
started to fill it with pieces of old rusty barbed metal (no tetanus shot
required?).   We were soon
joined by Kyler and Carlin who helped to fill more buckets with barbed wire and
carry them back to the bottom of the drop.  Somewhere in here Dave T. and Dave D. took the first truckload
of trash to the dump, yippee!  To
facilitate the raising of the trash I was stationed at the second waterfall
drop on belay while Ken was at the top lifting the loads and directing
traffic.  The smaller buckets went
up easily but big blue caused a bit of a struggle as it had nothing to tie on
to so we spent many minutes cutting holes in the sides so we could get it on
rope and it was too wide to fit where the skinny buckets had done fine.  After many tries and some coercing from
the cable ladder Ken’s excellent maneuvering skills got ‘er up.  Jacob joined the crew at the bottom to
help with the rest of the trash while Dave T. and Ken waited up top.  After the final loads were collected
down below we raised them up one last time.  I guess people hauled them up to the entrance but I don’t
know the details… We did some pull-ups to warm ourselves up for the rest of the cave.
Dave T. then joined Carlin, Kyler, Jacob, and me down below
for a quick exploration trip of the rest of the cave.  We took a few pics while we waited for Dave T. to get down.  

            From
the top of the waterfall Ken gave us careful instructions on where to go in the
cave, naturally Carlin was the only one paying attention…So, the crowd headed
down past the clean-up zone to the breakdown climb and over the rockwall to the
rest of the cave.  According to
Carlin and Ken, we should have turned off shortly after this at the zen garden
to continue up to the top of the mud room.  Instead, most of us continued on straight ahead down the
more obvious passage to the mudroom. 
We played around here for a while sliding up and down the mudslides,
Carlin took some photos, and Dave T. crawled down to the (suposedly salamander
filled) sump.  We spent several
minutes chasing a mouse-like creature around the big room, but just couldn’t
catch it or its photo. 
            After
a reasonably thorough tour of the cave we started heading out but stopped for
more photos along the way.  Jacob
did some meditation and pushups with the Christmas goose. 
 Some photos were produced.  We then ran into Ken, Dave, and Dawson
on their way through the mud room (they followed Ken’s instruction so were
coming up behind us instead of running head on into us).  In the mud room Ken fished out an old glass bottle of something (maybe drugs, maybe mud, maybe cave aliens, no one knows) 
 After playing around for a while our group headed out toward the cable
ladder while Dave, Dawson, and Ken goofed around as to not congest things on
the way out.  Our group scampered up
the ladder uneventfully with Dave T. on belay up top.  Dave, Jacob, and I waited for Ken’s group so we could belay
them up.  Ken was first up, and as
he weighted the ladder the unfortunate rock that I had placed earlier went
smashing down onto his head rolling off onto his shoulder and tumbling to the
ground.  We worried from above
while Ken caught his bearings and Dave D. checked to make sure there was no
bleeding.  After a brief survey it
was determined that he did not need to be flat-rocked, so
Ken headed up the ladder a second time…this try he was
unharmed.   Dave D.
and Dawson followed him up, also unharmed.  Dave D. and Dave T. derigged the ladder while the rest of us
headed to the entrance.
            We
packed up the gear and headed to pick up Tanya for a lovely Mexican dinner
where Dawson learned some interesting tricks with straws, lemon seeds, and air
pressure… Note: Somewhere in there another load of trash was taken to the
dump (not sure where since I spent the entirety of the trip on the low side of
the waterfall).  Then we all went
to bed happily ever after and woke up for Worley’s the next day! Fun was had by
all.

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Sorry it’s taken me a while to get this written up.  I’ve been having too much fun caving and camping since convention…

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This year the annual NSS convention was held at the state fairgrounds
in Lewisburg, WV.  Considering that
Greenbrier County is home to more than 1000 caves, we couldn’t have asked for a
more appropriate location.  
The pre-registration stats show that there were 958 cavers
registered before convention so including the stragglers who registered during
the week, there were well over 1000 cavers (one cave in the county per person I
guess).  In attendance from our
crowd were Carlin Kartchner, T. Robert Harris Phd, Ken Walsh, Peter Hertl, Mark
Daughtridge, Diana Geitl, Tanya McGlaughlin, and Ava Pope.  We had several other cool people camping
with us too, Lee Olson and Irena Melnic from South Carolina? and Patrick and
Madison Craft from Roxboro.
I can’t speak much for the beginning of convention since I
didn’t arrive until Tuesday evening, but I’ll do my best.  The bulk of the crew (everyone except
me and Diana) arrived to the fairgrounds campground on Sunday.  Not sure who arrived first, but I do
know that Ken graciously brought along the enormous and bulky tritrogs canopy
and (I’m assuming) with the help of others set it up to stake claim to a lovely
campsite just downhill from the trees, beer tent, and bathrooms. 
Monday morning Tanya gave her presentation on Sugar
Grove in the Exploration of the Virginias session.  From the comments I’ve heard it was very well received.  There is also Facebook evidence that
Mark Daughtridge was, “At NSS Convention watching Peter climb 120 m in 5:39 on rope.”
— with Ken Walsh and Robert Harris at Greenbrier
East High School at 4:05 pm Monday afternoon.  Turns out Peter won both the 120 m and
30 m climbing competitions.  What a
guy!  Monday evening was the howdy
party.  I didn’t hear wild stories
about it when I arrived so I guess it was relatively tame…or I wasn’t talking
to the right people.
During the day on Tuesday people did stuff, though I’m not
sure exactly what they did.  At
some point Pete did some more climbing and Rob managed to set the men’s record
in the CaveSim which held through the rest of the week.  Congrats Rob!  In the evening Ken attended the new members/fellows gathering
complete with Mayan themed shot glasses and tequila.  Mark Daughtridge headed home for knee surgery.  Rob and Carlin explored a hole in the
ground until very late (can’t remember the name of the cave, but they didn’t
get back ‘til 12:00 or 1:00 am).  
I
arrived at the fair grounds around 7:30 pm at which point Rob, Carlin, Ken,
Peter, and Tanya were busy having fun and not answering their phones, luckily
the canopy was easy enough to spot and Tanya happened to be strolling by it.  She helped me setup my tent and then we
set off for the free beer including the convention special IPA, Cave Monster.  Shortly afterward Ken joined us.  I met up with some family friends from
Texas, it was great to spend time with them!
Wednesday was the international session and photography
lessons (that Ken attended).  Several
people watched talks about caving in Mexico, Haiti, China, Tasmania, etc.  Really interesting stuff.  Things I learned: Caving in Mexico
right now is dangerous.  If you see poppies in Mexico and want
to live to see another day do not admire their beauty, leave the area before
the drug lords come after you with machine guns.   If anyone wants to go to Tasmania,
they’re desperate for decent sketchers, especially those interested in teaching
their skills to others.  If you go
on caving expeditions in areas of drought China you have to use one single
bucket of water to wash all of the things for all of the people in your group
over the course of several weeks, it turns out to be one very very muddy
bucket.  
Wednesday evening was the campground party with free beer
and live music by the Terminal Siphons. 
Ken and Erika moved the party away from the main area to Erika’s
campsite for folk songs around the citronella candle (no campfire, so we did
the best we could).   She has
an amazing voice and her friend Jay is great too! 
Thursday Lee and I participated in the vertical workshop
where we got to try out rappelling on a petzl stop and a rack.  Also, we got to try several ascending
systems including personal lessons from Dick Mitchell on how to use the
Mitchell system and more tips from the one and only Vertical Bill.  Our very own Peter Hertl was teaching
the rope walker system, and we also got to climb with knots and a frog
system.  Several instructors were
impressed by my frogging skills, much thanks to ample training with Ken and
Pete.  Ken and Diana went on a
photo trip, as Ken wrote about earlier.  In the evening was the
salon awards show with a few cave ballads, arts and crafts, and lots of pretty
cave photos.  Free beer and more
singing and guitar-ing by Erika followed. 
I also had my first first-hand experience with all of the old naked guys
in the hot tub and sauna at 3 am…
On Friday Tanya, Patrick, Madison, and I went caving in the
first cave I’d been in since several visits to Cold Sink.  It was huge!  Lots of walking passage, 2 cave salamanders, and 20 or 30
larval stage salamanders of some kind. 
It was a blast!  This
reminded that caving is awesome, and that there are caves out there that aren’t
as miserable as Cold Sink.   
Everyone cleaned up in time to attend the banquet dinner and
awards in the big hall of the fair grounds across the road from the campground.
 Ken, Carlin, Tanya, Patrick,
Madison, and I joined my Texas people at a table near the front.  Dinner was great, but as the awards
began we noticed a large reddish (on the radar) storm headed straight for
us.  Though the storm appeared to
be 30 or 40 miles away, several minutes into the awards the power began to
flicker on and off.  I had left my
tent fly open so I decided to head back with Patrick and Madison to batten down
the hatches.  Carlin had just
finished packing his stuff to head toward Germany Valley for a big trip on
Saturday.  Within 5 minutes of
reaching the tents a huge gust of wind (apparently clocked at just over 80 mph)
came seemingly out of nowhere and took many things very very far away. Our canopy managed to fly up
and over Ken’s car luckily leaving the car unscathed, Rob’s tent is still M.I.A.,
Patrick’s and Madison’s tents flew away leaving their gear scattered in a line
for a hundred yards or more.  Ken’s
tent was flattened by the wind but managed to hold its ground so I was able to
stuff it and everything inside of it into his car (luckily he accidentally left
it unlocked) before it was completely destroyed.  I did the same to salvage my tent.  Irena’s tent was also flattened so I
rolled it up with the help of a nice passer-by and put it on the downwind side
of Rob’s car, it seemed to survive pretty well.  Patrick and I were running around in the storm like madmen
trying to recover everything and put it in cars or on the downwind side of
Rob’s car.  

Once we managed to secure everything we headed back over to
the banquet hall to see how the others were faring.  We found Carlin who apparently didn’t make it very far down
the road because of down trees and powerlines.  Reportedly, Pete was running around scaring small children
by yelling about the Mayan prediction of the end of the world, not sad that I
missed that.  Ken, Rob, Irena, and
my Texas friends were all alive which was really relieving.  We spent some time helping to turn the
banquet hall into an emergency shelter for those who lost their tents, or didn’t
want to risk sleeping in the campground near downed powerlines.  After the storm passed and the winds
had settled we went to survey the damage. 
Ken and I found what was left of the canopy about 100 yards from where
it had lived happily earlier in the week. 
Many of the steel poles were bent at 90 degree angles and the tarp was
destroyed.  Incredibly, the
TriTrogs flag was flying proudly so naturally we took some photos, (and Ken went caving) see below. 

After being told that we couldn’t resetup our tents in the
campground, Ken and Tanya headed to their respective homes around midnight to
avoid sleeping with masses of people on the concrete floors of the converted
banquet hall.  Rob and Irena
resetup their tents anyway and stayed the night.  Patrick, Madison, and I found a nice sleeping area with
carpet and restrooms in one of the other fairground buildings.  As one might expect of cavers in a
disaster situation, the beer began to flow again around 1 am so a few of
us walked around surveying the damage with Cave Monster in our hands.  Several cars were crushed (but no one
injured), trailers were turned over, and the main tent was destroyed.  It looked like a war zone. 
Saturday morning we took some more photos of the damage and
headed home.  Carlin stopped at
Island Ford for a short cave trip. Luckily I had filled up with gas just before
arriving at convention so I didn’t have to worry about the lack of power and
gas for nearly 100 miles from Lewisburg. 

All in all it was an unforgettable experience.  I apologize for anything I forgot to
include, the lack of sleep and plethora of cave beer have left my memory a bit
hazy. Glad everyone made it out alive and well!  It’ll all happen again in Shippensburg, PA next August.  Be there.