Tritrogs General Meeting

April 24, 2012

Nothing remotely interesting happened prior to 8pm at which time the intrepid grotto secretary arrived and began taking notes. Rumor is that introductions included each person mentioning a cave on their "bucket list" they really want to get to someday.

Attendees: About 14? Including the disembodied pixelated head of Dr. Rob Harris live from Charlotte, Ken Walsh, Peter Hertl, Carlin Karchner, Ava Pope, Martin G, Bryce S, Jacob, Matt Lubin, Riley W, Mike (sorry I missed Mike's last name), Nick, and eventually Mark D


Old Business and New Business
If any, this happened before the legendary scribe arrived.

Trip Reports

Bryce showed photos of Atwells tunnel cave with cool custom lighting by Matthew Weiss .
Great photos, Lots of water, chest deep pools, stream, nice formations cool shadow effects, Digital DSLR camera. Dodge and burn photo process technique.

Grand caverns- Ava, Jacob, and others at Grand restoration trip, re-glue formations, re-pave walkway in cave w gravel, bucket bruises etc from carrying many loads of gravel by hand. Nice dinner by Andy R. afterwards
Rest day next day. Cleanup done every Easter.


Carlin reported on Cyclops cave. 15 salamanders seen. Ava very envious of reported salamander sightings.
4 guys went, nicely decorated, in for 16 hrs, surveyed in downstream section, zip line rigged across lake and waterfall. Surveyed about 400 ft. Survey ends in walking passage.

Jacob shared about several folks going on cold sink survey. Off the old map now to new mapping! Ava and one other crossed crossed 20 ft wide 18 ft deep pit with makeshift harness, passage opened up, Survey station G17 lead goes to an intriguing big room. Picture shown of overlay on Surface map- new survey with original survey which is off by about 30 ft. Discussed magnetic declination gps error etc, Orange is the correct/newer line on his overlay to google earth map.

Rob went to Newberry-Banes /Pig hole- 170 ft entrance pit, rappel led in, entrance ledge, near Virginia Tech area, 190 ft drop, 2nd longest in Va. Rope walker system heavy and pain to take on and off, would prefer other system, banged up a bit

Sunday, Ava went to Sugar Grove area of Smyth County, VA: quarter square mile with 12 caves, Tanya is presenting on this area at NSS Convention!

Carlin, Ava, Mark D and about 25 others (many non cavers) attended a talk at UNC by Roger Brucker. A few of us had dinner with him and his wife Lynn beforehand. We met 2 of their poodles, saw their cool van/RV. cool guy, He spoke about Floyd Collins and writing the famous book, and about exploring around Mammoth Cave, KY and linking it up to other systems to form the world's longest cave and still growing as more is surveyed. (More than 360 miles currently.)

Upcoming Trips:
Pete and Rob planning to go to VAR 4/27-29

5/4 SERA - AL
Jacob wants to cave somewhere the weekend of 5/4 if anyone interested but perhaps not as far away as Alabama

JUNE 22-30 pre convention, NSS Convention (25-29) and post convention activities

July 13 grotto trip to Breathing Cave! Riley working on food, borrow helmets etc now from Grotto as we could run out

Aug 11 Copenhavers cave cleanup trip

Some in group interested in organizing a Mammoth Cave group trip

Break

Program
Knots with Carlin

Showed 2 good books - Alpine Caving Techniques and On Rope

Old saying to avoid: "If you don't know your knot tie a lot", Not a safe way in many situations!!

Knots used for General caving, set hand lines, rig etrier etc, Rig traverse such as in Cold Sink Cave etc.
End knot, mid line knot, seat harness made of Webbing

Demo followed, then practice

Lot of knots have multiple names.
Discussed and practiced several knots:
Water knot on webbing
Figure 8 on a bight
Barrell knot (1/2 of double fisherman's)
Double cows tail with knots about forearm length between
Butterfly (also called Alpine Butterfly)

Being a very knotty group we stayed past time the Museum staff wanted to go so at 10pm we took the ropes outside. Having already eaten the fearless note taker departed with presumptions that the group proceeded to a local watering hole perhaps to continue tying knots and rouse the suspicions of other patrons.