BLUE RIDGE GROTTO of the National Speleological Society

BRG Minutes 5/17/24

Jersey Lily’s; Roanoke, VA

 

Attendance:

Nick Schmalenberger, Chair

Dave Socky, Vice Chair

Kelly Perkins, Treasurer

Marian McConnell, Secretary

Lynn Ott

Barry Ferguson

Helene Ferguson

Doug Feller

Mary Sue Socky

Susan Burr

Eric Stanley, MD**

Jeff Huffman

Abbey Mays*

Alexander Koch*

Dylan Kelly*

*Guest

**Guest Speaker

 

Trip Reports –

 

4/21: Goodwins Cave, VA by Susan Burr:  Another fun filled day! Caving at Goodwin Cave with Jeff Huffman, Lauren Appel, Nick Schmalenberger, Kelly Perkins & Trish Geiger. We explored around the whole cave for the most part. Today the crawl/belly crawl that is really long, was partially full of water. I referred to this as the Crawl from Hell! We were wet from shoulders to toes. Still a fun! We saw 1 bat & several baby salamanders. Susan checked on proper way to clean off graffiti to share with landowner, John; he also said he was thinking about building a firepit and camping outside the cave, and would invite BRG.

 

4/27: Unspecified Cave, VA. Participants included David Socky, Mark Minton, Jacob Whitlock. We went to the historic downstream section to place dye traps in preparation of dye tracing efforts in the Warm Springs Project area. We entered the cave around 11:00am. We first collected a previously placed dye trap and then headed downstream. Lot of climbing up and down and between and through large breakdown blocks. There was a slippery slot to climb up, then back down to the water. Some short duck under spots to go through. Then there is the way to the bypass for a sump.  An old wooden ladder, with modern nails make this climb up a piece of cake. At the top is where the cable ladder must be rigged. The way down is a narrow slot with a bit of a traverse, and then another tight awkward spot to go down. Then it’s not bad. But the cable ladder is a pain in the ass. Especially getting back up. But to be honest, it wasn’t as bad as I was afraid it would be. But it was narrow enough that Jacob was worried about being able to climb back out. So, Jacob waited at the top of the climb while Mark and I went downstream with the traps. After the cable ladder is a water filled passage with a very deep floor channel which can be avoided if you don’t slip off the sloping slippery underwater ledge. Eventually there is a large water filled room near the end of the downstream section. Going through another narrow spot, we got to the room where there was a large infeeder to the right. The water was clear and cold, so most likely not from Mud Pot Cave. Mark put a dye trap in the infeeder and collected a sample of water. We then went a little further downstream in the main stream and placed the third trap. We were out by 3:30 pm for a nice 4.5-hour trip.

 

5/1: Dressler Cave, VA. Participants included David Socky, Bill Koerschner, Rick Lambert, Jim Schurman, and Keith Sweeney. We found this cave on the Dressler property (where Mud Pot is located). It had been noted before by Keith many years ago, but never explored. It was a pretty large near vertical entrance. I went in first and slid down a steep short slope which ended at a vertical drop off of about 15 feet into a large dry room. We rigged a cable ladder and then I went down to check out the room.  I checked all the easy leads first, none of which went. The final lead required a climb up, then climbing down a windy phreatic narrow canyon for about 12 feet. But the last 6 feet was undercut with no foot holds to get back up. I couldn't tell if it continued, but it sounded like a dead end - not enticing. I decided not to try to climb down. I climbed back up and out and reported my finds. It was decided that this would be a perfect cave for the RASS survey students to survey, so I climbed back out and derigged the ladder. We spent the rest of the day with a little more ridge walking and then some work on one of the digs on the Pasco property.     

 

5/4: Simmons Mingo, WV. Participants included David Socky, Carl Amundson, Nikki Fox, Hunter Campbell, and three others. This was spring VAR led trip. Nikki and Hunter were the trip leaders. They took us on a loop that required doing about 7 or 8 vertical pitches, both up and down. Nothing difficult except one spot where you had to pull yourself over about 3 feet to the edge with a tag line to get off rope. All other drops/climbs were pretty easy and short. We went in the main large upper entrance, down the big rooms and through the Jar of Gravel (a vertical 3-D breakdown maze). There was one tight spot, but an easy exposed climb allowed you to bypass it on the way out. We went all the way down to the stream before we had to do any rope work. It was a fun 5-hour sport trip.

 

5/8: Glass Bottle & Pasco dig, VA. Participants included David Socky, Joe Zokaites, and Rick Royer. Worked on the Glass Bottle dig and got down another 3 or 4 feet. Looked pretty bleak. We did one stray to get a larger rock out. But there were no openings and certainly not any air. We gave up on it and moved over to the Pasco Dig. Rick cleaned the spoils out from the last dig, I pulled buckets up from halfway down and Joe pulled the bucket up from the top, dumped the contents and sent the bucket back down. Rick got all the spoils out. The way on looked hopeless. No air. We gave up. By this time, the geology team was back. We all sat around and watched as Rick and Joe dug at another hole that had moss, but after getting down 4 feet, there was still nothing but dirt. They gave up.

 

5/4: Sharps Cave, WV – During VAR, Jeff Huffman and Nick Schmalenberger went to the waterfall; about 16 people did the trip.

 

4/26 – Mary Sue and Dave went to Martinsville and ran into Lauren Appel at the Natural History Museum. There was a reception for a new book out on Isopods – 13 species.

 

4/27 – Mary Sue, Meredith, and John Pearson participated at the VAR conservation project in Bland County; there were about 25 people there and some heavy equipment which made this an easy project. VPI took over with the excavation equipment. No passage was found at the bottom.

 

This Month’s trips – 

·         BRG – Scott Hollow on May 18. 8 are signed up. Mike Dore is the landowner and has some new sign-in policies in place.

 

Next Month’s grotto trip – TBA June 22

 

BUSINESS MEETING

Treasury Report – Kelly Perkins, Treasurer –

 

$    110.96         Cave Bucks

$        2.00         Conservation Fund

$    144.12         Equipment Fund

$ 6,936.09        General Fund

$ 7,193.17    Total Funds

 

Committees:  

●        Newsletter – Great issue for May! Beautiful bacon on the cover.

●        Membership – has 53 members & 5 subscribers. The membership list and cards are done and have been sent out or brought to this meeting.

●        ROCKS – Dave is still participating in the Warm Springs project.

●        Safety & Techniques – Nick – 4/17 had climbing practice at River Rock climbing gym. He also held a Caving Rope practice at River Rock climbing gym – May 16 from 3-5p.He also did some vertical practice in his apartment building (6 floors) – made sure safety vests, helmets, and techniques were used.  All the practices were successful and he hope to offer more vertical training on a regular basis.

 

Membership Proposals:  Abbey Mays and Alexander Koch both submitted letters requesting to join. Nick Schmalenberger agreed to sponsor them both and read their letters, and Susan Burr seconded the motions. This will be tabled until the June BRG meeting for votes.

 

Old Business 

·         Updated BRG membership cards and rosters have been mailed or given out.

·         Blue Ridge Grotto Google Groups - blueridgegrotto@googlegroups.com; as of 4/13/24 there are about 10 who have not signed up for the BRG Google Group.  The Officers have made individual calls and sent messages to those people to give them a final chance.  If they don’t accept the invitation, they will no longer receive the emails (meeting announcements, newsletters, etc.) GOOGLE MAIL BRG GROUP: The group set up is for BRG members only. MarySue has a list of prospective members and exchanges (other Grottos) that she and Dave are weeding out to make current, so they will continue to get a copy of the message(s). If anyone wants to share a trip or activity with a non-member, they can forward it individually to that person(s) “ad hoc”.

·         CaveSim will be in Roanoke July 12 & 13 and in Blacksburg on July 14.  Per Dylan Kelly, they have enough funding for Roanoke. Blacksburg needs help. Dave Socky moved that BRG donate $250 for Blacksburg, Susan Burr seconded, and it passed unanimously. Per Zenah Orndorff: VAR is handling the money for the July events. Donation checks should indicate "CaveSim in VA 2024" in the memo and be sent to: VAR c/o Carol Tiderman; 2901 Moreland Gap Rd; New Market, VA 22844

·         Funding is being solicited for CaveSim to come to GoFest in Roanoke in the Fall; so we will table until we know what the needs are to decided if we want to donate.

·         BRG FLYERS AND STICKERS: Samples of the BRG 2 sticker designs along with a price list were shared at the April BRG meeting and in the Carbide Dump. Marian moved that 500 flyers and 250 of each of the 2 style stickers be purchased, hopefully to have in time for the CaveSim events in July. Helene Ferguson* seconded and it passed unanimously; so Kelly will order these next week. NOTE as of 6/14/24: Helene is a Sub, not member, and can’t vote; so MarySue has seconded the the motion so we can proceed.  Special thanks to Lynn Ott for her donation for the stickers and flyers!

·         BRG CAVING EQUIPMENT – MarySue provided a list of caving equipment we have on hand. Dave gave it to Nick. It lists helmets, lights, bash (First Aid) kits, etc. We need to set up a date and time to go through it all and see about replacing/upgrading it; especially the helmets and lights.  Nick suggested we have a BRG day where we do that and also practice some vertical work off the tree in the Socky’s backyard. Marian suggested perhaps in early November. Tabled until October.

New Business:

·         Nick Schmalenberger asked if BRG would like to host the Spring VAR 2025? Susan suggested the Fall one might be better, weather-wise. Who would be interested in helping (as leaders or volunteers) sponsor a VAR in Spring of 2025 in Bath County at the RASS property? We would need people to coordinate the various activities and logistics: dinner, treasurer, vendors, porta-potties, registration, guide book, social media; as well as volunteers to help in the various tasks. There is a handbook on how to host a VAR, the last one we did was in 2008.  Tabled for further discussion in June.

·         BRG needs a representative at the Congress of Grottoes at Convention in July in Sewanee, TN. Anyone going who would be willing? There are 3 current issues to be addressed: (1) For NSS to publish the Membership Manual in hard copy, (2) for the NSS to print in hard copy the NSS Journal, and (3) for the NSS to have harsher penalty for violations of the NSS Code of Conduct.

 

Program:  Dr. Eric Stanley about Cave Rescues [we moved this before Announcements and Calendar to give Eric more time to give his excellent presentation!]

 

Announcements:

●        Healthy Caving – let’s be healthy going underground.  Rules were posted in the DUMP. 

●        Please send verified cave info updates for https://var.caves.org/index.php/conservation/closed-caves/closed-cave-list to Brad Blasé.

●        We are in summer bat closure, only a few caves are closed for bats, so cave elsewhere. VA = April 15 – Oct 15 (maternity colonies) and WV = May 15 – Sept 1 (maternity colonies).

●        Catawba Murder Hole Cave is CLOSED

 

2023 CAVER CALENDAR:

●        May 17-19 – 2024 Spring MAR Field Meet, McClure Bean Soup Festival Grounds; McClure, PA.

●        May 22-28 – Speleofest, Lone Star Cave Preserve, Bonnieville, KY.

●        May 24-26 – Salem Gem, Mineral and Jewelry Show at Salem Civic Center. Facebook salemgemshow page.

●        June 2-8 – Virginia Cave Week.

●        July 1-5 – NSS Convention in Sewanee, TN

●        July 12-13 – CaveSim in Roanoke. (July 14 in Blacksburg).

●        September 20-22 - Eastern Region NCRC is offering a weekend course, Orientation to Cave Rescue (OCR) held at the Elkins Fire Dept. and camping will be at the OTR site in Dailey.  See  https://ncrc-er.caves.org/  for updates on registration and class info. 

●        Oct 3-6 TAG will be in Union Grove AL on the Lazy G Ranch; details TBD.

 

Cold Beer! About 8:30p.