General Meeting Minutes from May 24, 2022

Introductions

Triangle Troglodytes in attendance: Zeke, Emily, Peter, Ken, Stephan, Mark, Taylor O., and Howard

Business

  • As always, a dues reminder. Pay your annual TriTrogs dues now or wait until July and pay half-price! Here is our PayPal stuff.
  • NSS dues range from $20 to $140, depending on how nice you are. Find details at this link. (NSS = National Speleological Society)
  • Annual Grotto Trip! Those in attendance agreed on the weekend of August 13. The location remains up in the air.
  • Louis asked for suggestions for future meeting programs. Stephan may be willing to present some of his cave diving photos, and Mark suggested a rundown of caving-related feature films (think The Descent, Sanctum, The Cave, etc).
  • Free loot! Howard gave away two gently used wetsuits and two tins of carbide.

Trip Reports (VAR Edition)

We went in. We came out. We had fun.

Stephan F.
  • Return to Endless Caverns: Stephan and Peter went on a tour of the wild section of Endless Caverns. They encountered small holes, crawling sections, pits to avoid, pits to descend, and even some water.
  • Ken worked on a project to rebuild the trail to Madison Saltpeter to make it less noticeable from below. In addition to the trail project, the Cave Conservancy of the Virginias hopes to reclaim the Cave Hill Natural Area Preserve from the invasive species.
  • Taylor O. visited small, well-decorated Massanutten Cave, which operated as a commercial caverns once upon a time. They were warned that the lower, wild level sometimes floods, and it had, so it was a short, wet trip.
  • Ken attended the Sunday VAR meeting. Among other topics discussed, Southeastern Cave Conservancy (SCCi) has acquired Salamander Cave, a vertical maze cave over 2 miles long in Giles County, Virginia. Also, there is again and always some discussion about gating New River Cave.
  • On the way home, Ken, Stephan, Peter, and Taylor walked through Crozet Tunnel (aka Blue Ridge Tunnel). They refrained from scraping the lampenflora off the walls and enjoyed the respite from the heat.

Upcoming Things

  • June 11 – sport trip to Hancock Cave
  • June 13-17 – NSS Convention in Rapid City, SD
  • July 8-10 – Karst-O-Rama in Mt. Vernon, KY
  • July 15-23 – NCRC Cave Rescue Seminar and Training in Covington, VA
  • July 24-31 – International Congress of Speleologie in France
  • Aug 13 – Annual Grotto Trip
  • Aug 20 – Led trips at Perkins Cave in Washington Co., VA

Program

We watched a video about an electrical resistivity project in Bracken Cave, roosting site for millions of Mexican free-tailed bats. The project is billed by the National Cave & Karst Research Institute as the world’s first geophysical survey of bat guano. The purpose is to find the perfect location from which to take a core sample of guano, for analysis of the bats’ diets throughout the ages.