July 2011 TriTrogs General meeting

NC Museum of Natural Sciences
Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Attendees: Mark Daughtridge, Ken Walsh, Mark Little, Howard Holgate, Lisa Foley, Ava Pope, Matthew Lubin, Hayden Holgate, Bryce Schroeder, Yuan Li, Carlin Kartchner, and the hovering head of Dr. Robert Harris attending via Skype from Charlotte

General socializing 7:30 to 7:37
Meeting start 7:38

Old Business- T-shirts- Art submissions!! 3 are in from Martin. Any others designs to be considered will be due and decision to be made by September Meeting.

Receipts from Grotto Trip still to be re-imbursed

New Business-
Red Cross training desired? 8 people would be interested in a course. Mark D will ask his friend and ARC instructor Danny M about options, cost, dates, locations
No NCRC Training announced currently.

New members should give Mark L. membership forms
Matthew Lubin will mail check to Mark L. for dues.

Trip Reports
Carlin went to Germany valley Karst survey at ShovelEater Cave in West Virginia near Hell Hole cave. Went to end of diamond canyon. Long crawl/chimney, goes to station 43 as a crawl. 52-60 year old tough, good cavers. Followed stream passage, broke through to a pit but no way beyond that. Used micro blasting for a bit but now not even plausible for that.
Got to see the nice parts of the cave too. 14 hour trip. Had to pull fixed rope on the way out. Mark Minton, Bob, Dwight Livingston also on the trip.

Bryce presented Martin’s pictures of the grotto trip. Formations, salamander, kitten, muddy cavers, foggy shots, stream, Caleb the exotic bird on arms- from nice cave owner lady. Luna moth. Again, a good trip with good food.

Upcoming Trips
8/6 Fountain Cave Photography trip – Ken shared photos that they want to re-shoot with better technique. With Ericka Hoffman (near Grand Caverns commercial open since 1804) easy cave, nice formations. Access to Grand Caverns too. In Grottos, VA Pictures given to the cave establishment. Possible midnight tour with history of Grand.

9-1 to 9-5 Labor Day weekend OTR- Old Timer’s Reunion, Thurs-Sun 8 hour drive from Raleigh, lots of vendors, bands playing music, lots of caves around, $35 covers it all including beer. Must register early. See www.OTR.org for details. Peter will most likely go. Need to go as a guest of a TRA- Robertson Association member to restrict to cavers.

Setp 17 Bug Fest contact Pete Hertl to volunteer
September 24-30 Kan is going to Carlsbad Mapping with CRF
10-14 to 16 Fall VAR- Bath County, marvelous caves- Breathing Cave,Wishing Well, etc
10/6-9 TAG Fall Cave-In (http://www.tagfallcavein.org)
11-19 Cavers Learn WNS in TN- see e-mail.
6/25-29, 2012 NSS Convention (West Virginia TBD)
Vertical Training -? Pete and Mark D to determine dates
Red Cross Training?- Mark D. to get details from Red Cross

Program
2nd half of National Geographic Special on “World’s Largest Cave”

After meeting meeting was presumably held at a nearby watering hole although the humble TriTrogs secretary did not make it to the post meeting festivities.