Wednesday, February 13, 2013

TriTrogs January 2013 General Meeting

The Month the Mayans Never Saw Coming

Attendance:  One Dozen Cavers:  Jacob, Ava, Mike Broome, Lisa L,  Nicholas H, Tim Vaughn, Matthew Weiss, Mark D, Peter H, Mark L,  Ben , Carlin
 
Matthew told his human squirrel story of tearing tendon from bone in his shoulder, which sadly will have him out of caving for a while and wearing a cumbersome brace/sling.   But he still operates a mean slide one armed slide show.  
  
Old Business:
Award presented to Mike B since he missed the holiday party, and we reported on the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement award we made to Tanya at her house on the last Cold Sink trip.  
Payment of dues to Mark L by many.
Canopy looks nice in the photos, to be decided on soon
Holiday party was fun
  
New Business:
Election of Officers for 2013!
Minutes of discussion and much campaigning costing way less than $2B resulted in the following slate being duly elected:
Officers for 2013 Triangle Troglodytes are  (drum roll . . . )
  • Chair:  Carlin Kartchner
  • Vice Chair:  Mark Daughtridge
  • Secretary:  Ava Pope
  • Treasurer: Mark Little
  • Web Master: Mike Broome
 (Or was that Ava Secretary elected as Pope?)
 
Trip Reports:
Carlin and his brother visited an AZ cave, well hidden under brush, over Christmas break.  Showed a few pictures 
Rowland's vertical pictures from November shown by Carlin
 
Matthew showed cool pictures from Worley's TN - Beautiful pictures w cool camera gear.  Including rim stone /Flowstone area.  Discussed photography techniques
Also pictures from Smokehole, cool pics with cool lighting
Demoed new light he built over Christmas  2.5 hours very bright
 
Carlin described the recent Cold Sink survey trip- 5100 ft total, still a shade under 1 mile (5280 ft)! 4 teams on last trip with 14 cavers total, one more trip to cleanup , one crawl dig that is unlikely to go.  Sadly would need major digging or smaller feet to stretch it to a full mile.  
 
Ava talked about two small caves at bottom of Grand Canyon, an exact Christmas tree formation which later was found listed on the map as the Christmas Tree cave.  The trip was at New Years but it's one stone tree that's up year round.
 
Little cave at Schoolhouse Rocks, goes 2 directions, Dave Duguid and "the Virginia Lisa" did quick survey, lying in 4 inches of water. Found monorail worm saw a mouse. 
 
Carlin back to Memorial Day Cave 3 day camp trip, need vertical surveyors.  It's a vertical jungle gym.  Decorated well, protected some formations w plastic
Did some survey in breakdown, there are 70 to 89 ft ceiling in areas under the camp room.  More leads and pits remain.  Getting to camp takes 3 hours or so.  It's a 5 hr drive in WV
 
Mike B showed a few short videos from the Mexico trip.  Mike plans to do a full and more formal program on the trip at a later meeting.  Very cool rappelling video including dropping a hitchhiking bit of vegetation and racing it to the bottom.
Lisa, Peter and Mike went with VBATS group 14 total.  Rob H was there on a separate trip w VPI
Most drove, Mike and Lisa flew.  50 hour drive!
5 days of caving,rental car antenna got stolen.  1st car had no engine so traded it.
Rain 3 of 4 days, very slick in cave. 200' to 1150' pits. 4400 ft total over 4 vertical days
Golindrinas, near Aquismon town
All limestone
One rig was on biting ants nest! One pit is 7 acres wide at bottom!
 
 
Due to elections and the many excellent trip reports since our last (non party) meeting in November we did not have a formal Program this meeting.   
We also forgot to talk about upcoming trips, so please see the calendar on the website for that info.
 
Adjourned at 9:06 to a local watering and tacoing establishment. 

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