TriTrogs General Meeting April 2011

TriTrogs General meeting
NC Museum of Natural Sciences

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Attendees: Howard Holgate, Mark Daughtridge, Lisa Foley (1st meeting!), Robert Harris, Ken Walsh, Susanna Clark

General socializing 7:30 to 7:45
Meeting start 7:45

Old Business- Nothing new on T Shirts or Vertical Training/practice
New Business- None

Discussion of gear and other things to know for new cavers. List of gear is on the web site.

Trip Reports
Lover’s Leap- Ken, Mike, Lisa See trip report on web site. Very interesting surveying in the deep slot. Pretty formations within the slot. Found 2 more pits at the bottom . About 30 feet of floor between the new/lower pits. Surveyed 2 other leads, one concludes, one needs digging. The other passage went to a nice room with 12 foot ceiling and small drain hole. Rain outside made it very tricky getting back up the hill outside the cave. It snowed as they descended the hill to drive to Pizza Hut.

Near Pittsboro/Siler City old Iron Mine- Revolution/Civil War used, about 12-18 mines on Conservancy land to look for bats and identify which species if any. Old iron furnace. Pics on web site. Potentially good place for vertical training? Spotted about 9 bats, and some turkey vulture eggs underground. A vulture startled Ken as it flew out. All bats were Tri-Color bats (Eastern Pipistrelles). No evidence of WNS was found.

Upcoming Trips
This weekend:
Spring VAR 4/29
MVOR Missouri 4/29
Dave/Dawson 4/29 may go caving/ridge walking

Survey trip for 5/8 or 5/15?? Dave Duguid considering
Vertical training- date to be confirmed
5/26 to 28 Kentucky Speleofest
6/25 TriTrogs Grotto trip Howard and Bryce organizing, cave TBD
Mark Little to look into Gilley’s Cave for some future trip.
7/18-22 NSS convention in Colorado, Glenwood Springs, in mid western CO.
8/6 Fountain Cave Photography trip With Ericka Hoffman (near Grand Caverns) (in August to avoid the Civil War re-enactment event at Grand in July which may also be of interest to some)


Program
Howard previewed the NSS convention in Colorado
Glenwood Springs was a mining town in 1890, changed from "Defiance" to GS at request of a homesick resident
Large geothermal pool there was used to treat TB, hospital for WWI and II.
One of first electrified hotels is there, Hotel Colorado. Teddy Roosevelt enjoyed the area.
Glenwood Canyon Highway construction started in mid 1960’s and is most expensive per mile in US. Has a heated road surface reportedly. Rafting/canoeing, bicycling in the area.
Airports in Grand Junction, Denver (cheapest), Montrose. Nice drives from the further cheaper ones. Nice gold mine in Idaho Springs on way from Denver
Commercial Glenwood Caverns is nicely decorated and has tourist and wild trips.
Doc Holiday’s Grave is up on the mountain, high lake, and gondola rides to top of mountain.
Part of Green River formation. Huge Oil deposits in Shale, difficult to extract
An experimental nuclear explosion was done there to try to extract the oil.
Wild horses and other interesting natural resources atop Grand Mesa and beautiful views. Good trout fishing in the lakes
Marble Colorado is there, best marble in world. (Says Howard who grew up there :-)) Used in Tomb of unknown soldier and lower half of Washington Monument. (finished with cheaper marble from Alabama). Town was wiped out repeatedly by avalanches, floods, etc. Scary gravel road to the marble quarry. Redstone Mansion is there, home of mine baron. Checkered past, not sure if it’s open to tourists now.
Colorado Monument in Grand Junction, cowboy museum, dinosaur museum.
Dinosaur National Monument park is a day’s drive away in Utah
Aspen is 2 hrs north with Maroon Bells park etc.
Convention provides cheap camping, cave gear is available to rent- check the website and avoid bringing protentially WNS infected gear.
See details of convention at www.caves.org
Geology field tour precedes convention. Lots of educational sessions at convention. Fascinating new exploration reports, technical sessions, cartography, etc , etc Thursday night slide show competition is great. Big banquet on Friday night with awards and great food. Hosts are very welcoming. Lots of vendors for gear discounts. Howard will be out there early and can pick us up at closer airports.

After the meeting dinner was at Armadillo Grill on Glenwood at about 9:30 pm