General Meeting Minutes - May 26, 2015

In attendance: Carlin, Rob, Ken, Dave, Peter, Emily, Mark D., Mike, Lisa, Howard, and Hayden.

Business
Carlin led a brief discussion regarding interest in procurement of a SurveyBat, an electronic survey instrument which, reportedly, is not a flying drone. It's more expensive than something, less expensive than something else, and the magnetic sensor is separated from the battery and electronics. Ken wanted to know if SurveyBats can swim. Carlin will look into that.

Pete brought up the possibility of group transportation to the NSS Convention, then sabotaged that plan by reminding everyone of the large quantity of gear that he will be taking. Renting a larger vehicle is still an option if there are enough other interested parties. Several other TriTrogs expressed their intentions to attend, but so far only one person had actually registered from NC.

Carlin announced that the TriTrogs will be transitioning to a new website. He didn't have a date in mind, but it will probably be soon. This will likely mean switching email providers again. The new website design is WordPress-based so it's more of a blog format. It will make it even easier to post trip reports, announcements, and meeting minutes, and will consolidate the above in one place. An announcement will be made when the time comes. Meanwhile, anyone interested in helping with content should contact Carlin.

Location ideas were casually tossed around for Summer Grotto Trip consideration. Mid-August.

Trip reports
Sport: YTR at the RASS field station. Mark and Rob reported an incident of tree-on-human violence that occurred during the night before the cave trip; it resulted in a broken nose and the loss of a tooth (neither of which belonged to Mark or Rob). They went to Crossroads. Rob got to the cave entrance before realizing he'd left his helmet back at camp. Apparently it was that kind of weekend. Eventually they saw some pretty parts of the cave, but they couldn't say how much. They also went to Breathing Cave and ate good food.

Boring stuff underground: Mike and Lisa went to Butler Cave for the Memorial Day work weekend. They helped get the outdoor shower working and did some other surface work. Then they went to Pat's Section of Butler Cave. It's really pretty, high, dry, kind of canyony passage. There were also some low belly crawls that the trip leader didn't remember from previous trips. According to Lisa that is The Way of Trip Leaders. They worked on a dig for four hours. The lack of air flow wasn't promising, but the wall sounded hollow when tapped on with an E-Tool (which, sadly, is not an electronic digging device). Mike climbed into an isolated spot where someone had written "Don't rise up" on the wall. Suppressing his inner revolutionary, Mike looked upwards and saw a large anthodite looming above his head.

Survey: Carlin returned to Perkins Cave with Martin and some members of Walker Mountain Grotto. This was Carlin's first time camping there; it was extremely convenient to be able to camp close to the entrance, especially since they spent a little over 12 hours in the cave on the first day. In total for the weekend the two teams surveyed 2000 feet. Carlin's team started in a really pretty part of the cave. They generated a lot of leads, particularly while surveying through some large breakdown. [Walker Mountain Grotto's trip report]

Upcoming trips
June 6-7 - Survey, Beaver Creek (Dave)
June 20-21 - Survey, Perkins Cave (Carlin)
July 13-17 - NSS Convention

Program
We watched part of a long (but interesting!) video [8 Days of Cave Diver Training] that followed two divers undergoing training at some pretty cenotes near Quintana Roo.

General Meeting Minutes - April 28, 2015

In attendance were Rob, Emily, Carlin, Ken, and Pete.

Business? What business? We dove straight into trip reports.

Ken was among the 25 volunteers who hauled gravel, painted, cleaned, sweated, and flexed for the tourists at the Grand Caverns Easter Restoration Camp. The tour guides are very appreciative of all the hard work, and they help get the word out to the public. [Here's the trip report.]

Rob went picnic caving. He went to Newberry-Banes. Again. He's looking forward to going to Banes Springs for a change, some day. It might be horizontal-ish?

Ken, Rob, and Emily attended Spring VAR at Natural Bridge. They and a few other TriTrogs went to Brady's Cave and Brady's Hidden Cave, which were a short drive away and yet devoid of other cavers. One of the caves either did or didn't have an interesting climb. The other cave smelled really bad, either like raccoon, or not. Ken attended the VAR meeting. [Here's the trip report.]

Pete was on rope in West Virginia, and it was cold and rainy and then rainy and cold.

Upcoming trips
May 1-3 - Perkins Cave Survey (Carlin.)
May 7-10 - SERA Cave Carnival
May 15-17 - Young Timers' Reunion (Rob, maybe.)
June 6-7 - Survey: Beaver Creek? Snow Cone? (Dave.)
July 13-17 - NSS Convention

We decided to save the exciting program for a time when more people could enjoy it.