Introductions/Attendees:
Mark Daughtridge, Carlin Kartchner., Ken Walsh., Howard Holgate,
Haden Holgate, Andy Koch, Mathew Lubin , Ava Pope
Program Part 1: Tri
Trogs Get Loopy
To start the meeting Ken set up a surveying course outside
the museum, as people showed up they used instruments and flashlights to
complete the course to the best of their abilities.
Old business:
We gave the instruments and helmet to Tanya, she was
extremely appreciative. Says
thanks to everyone who contributed.
We still need to get a canopy.
New Business:
none
Trip Reports:
Carlin went to orientation to cave rescue, started Friday
night through Sunday. Mock rescue
on Sunday, 3 patients needed to be rescued. Carlin was part of the first hasty
search team. Communications were
an interesting challenge. Two
patients were unresponsive and the other was supposed to have a broken leg
(cursing a lot). They were in
Bundy’s number two cave.
Ken delivered the Worleys cave map to the landowners. Followed Carlin around for a little bit
in search of Doan’s Cave but gave up and decided to head to Rob and Rachel Weinstock
to finish Lover’s Leap survey.
Needed 5 steep shots to get up into the ceiling. Rob was scared by a spider and screamed
in a girly way. Ken took them down
to a dig with a rock hammer, dug it out, there was about a 6 foot drop, Rob went
through and came back out, Ken sketched the room. Outside of the cave there were ~ 30 hawks in the trees, very
cool to see. And it was sunny! Mark thinks maybe the hawks were speed
dating. Ken and his group also
went to the Saltville Museum in Saltville -- he highly recommends it.
There were 9 of us at Tanya’s that weekend, 4 people went
looking for Doan’s but couldn’t find it.
Ava and Tanya talked to landowners early in the day and got permission
to survey a small cave that had a giant raccoon in it! It was super scary.
Andy went to Cumberland caverns a week or two ago, it’s a
commercial cave but peaked his interest in caves, big room with music and snack
bar, cool formations, there’s a guided walking tour that takes ~ 1 hr. It’s owned by religious people so at
the end there’s a light show with astronauts reading the bible. The previous evening they did the
“adventure tour”, did ~ 2 hr loop.
Saw lots of stuff and it was really cool. Now him and his friends are excited about caving!
Upcoming trips:
March 29-31 = Easter – Grand Caverns restoration weekend,
cleaning formations, regraveling paths, etc. Free lunch, Ken is looking for
someone to go with.
May 17-19 = spring VAR
Ken started surveying New River Cave back in the 90s, but now
will have the opportunity to finish it up. Map has been drafted, Ken has been asked to lead trips back
in there to clean up and finish up survey, resurvey a little bit. Going to try to get trips up there the
1st and 3rd weekends of the months. Hopefully the first trip will be in April? He’ll
definitely need people to help out.
Break:
Program Part 2: Tri Trogs see that it’s hard to get
loopy
During the discussion of other business Ken analyzed the
results from the survey earlier in the evening and then gave a brief
presentation on the basics of survey, some tricks, and what makes it tricky.
Here the results you’ve been patiently anticipating all month long! Carlin requests that no one be judged
for their caving abilities based on these results.
The moral of the story is – being able to close loops is
really important and really difficult, especially with short high angle shots
(and stray magnetic fields!)
