BLUE RIDGE GROTTO of the National Speleological Society

BRG Minutes for 1/17/2205

Logan’s Roadhouse, Roanoke, VA

Attendance:

Dave Socky, Chair Susan Burr, Vice Chair Mary Sue Socky, Secretary

Helene Ferguson Bob Alderson John Pearson

Barry Ferguson Sharon Mohney Cyndi Hutchison

Trish Geiger Doug Feller Jeff Huffman

*Kenan Gilkes-Smith *Jerin Manalel *Gary Hollingsworth

*Alex Thompson *Bob Balch

*Guest

Chair David Socky called the meeting to order at 6:30p.

TRIP REPORTS

11/17/2024: Benedicts, WV. Participants included David Socky, Nick Socky, Bob Alderson, and Bill Koerschner. We went to the back end of the cave to check a high lead that Kyle Mills had told Nick about. Nick dragged 35 pounds of bolting stuff through the entrance to the first large room. At this point, he decided not to drag it through the whole cave while doing route finding. It was a good thing he did because we didn't find the lead. The trip included plenty of nice walking passage, but had its share of hands and knee, army, and belly crawls. One was an army crawl through pools of water over cobbles. There were a couple of tight spots with one being close to my limit. Some funky climbs, narrow canyons with obstacles throughout, and of course, stemming high up in floorless canyons. It was a fun 7.5-hour trip.

11/20/2024: Triplet Cave, VA. Participants included David Socky, Bill Koerschner, Jason Sargent, Marisa Loftus, Jim Schurman, Keith Sweeney, Rick Lambert, and Andrew Newton. We checked out the dig face with me and Bill Koerschner going in first. Rocks and dirt that got washed in from the last rain wasn't that bad, but the bucket had been washed in past the dig spot. Bill was able to just reach it. I had to help pull Bill out by his feet. But we got the bucket. We removed one bucket of rocks and dirt out. Rick Lambert had already placed a 3-foot diameter blue barrel in the entrance (with the ends cut out). He wanted to cement it in place with concrete. We built a rock wall along the inner bank. Fencing was put in place in front of the barrel entrance to keep sticks and stuff out. We'll see how it works. We finished at about 1pm. We then moved on to Grape Arbor dig.

11/20/2024: Grape Arbor Pit, VA. Participants included David Socky, Bill Koerschner, Jason Sargent, Marisa Loftus, Jim Schurman, Keith Sweeney, and Andrew Newton. We got all the digging stuff up the hill side to the entrance of Grape Arbor. Jason and Keith fusted around with setting up the bucket pulleys on the tripod. Marisa went in first and dug out five buckets. Andrew went next and did 6 or 7 buckets. Then I went in with the drill and put in one hole. I would have done a second one, but the drill stopped working. It turned out later it was just the battery. Anyway, put in one 2-inch straw, wired it up and I climbed out. It went off fine. Bill climbed down to muck out the rocks. We took out 5 or 6 buckets from Bill and he finally came out. It was getting late, and a storm was coming. We got all the gear down to the cars, changed, milled about, and then the dark clouds moved in fast! I didn't even have time to tie my shoelaces or button my shirt. Closed the door just as the deluge let loose.

11/28/2024: Mammoth, New Discovery, China Wall, KY. Participants included David Socky, Bill Koerschner, Bob Alderson, and Michelle Touma. We went to the China Wall Passage to complete the replacement of the old F-Survey. Went down the steps at the New Discovery entrance and strolled down the borehole passage. Took the left turn at the first main intersection and just down a few hundred feet was the flowstone climb on the right. This is where we used the deer stand ladders to climb up the flowstone. There was a handline at the top which was good to use to get down. Between the four of us we had two sets of vertical gear - mine and Bills. At the top of the flowstone climb was a comfortable sand floored hands and knees crawl. We followed this for about 100 feet or so until we got to the expected pit. It was about 20 feet deep. I dug out a dirt filled loop in the right wall about 20 back from the pit which we used as a rig point. Bob used my eight ring to rappel down. He then free climbed up the other side. It was a scary, under hung climb which no one else wanted to do. So, we strung the rope across the pit and used that to pass him the distox2, white out, and my camera. He then did a solo survey while Bill took down the notes and sketched (Neither Bob nor I had our glasses, so Bill was the only one who could sketch!). He then free climbed back down, which he said was easier than the climb up. Then the rest of us rappelled to the bottom of the pit. From the bottom was a low crawl back under the upper passage which led almost immediately to a canyon where the floor was 40 feet down. Bob climbed all the way down but needed webbing in order to get back up. We did 3 shots, getting to the bottom, but there is probably another 30 or 40 feet of survey down below that will need to be done. Since no one else wanted to climb down, we all exited the cave, getting back to the field station by 7pm. Thanksgiving dinner was served at 8pm. It was very good. I ate too much! (We surveyed a total of 188 feet on a 7.5-hour trip.

11/29/2024: Mammoth Cave, New Discovery, Roaring River, KY. Participants included David Socky, Bill Koerschner, and Bob Alderson. Back down the walking passage, past the turn off for the China Wall and finally to the right hand turn off toward the KW survey that we did last year. Lots of crawling along with a funky climbdown (which was pretty easy on the way out). The crawling seemed really long, but not bad on the way out. There was one section of low army crawl with one spot of belly crawl under a rock, but that was pretty short. When we got to the KW survey, I recognized the passage. Cool potholes. Went past the point I had surveyed last year and continued down the canyon a long way. There were some climbdowns and step across places, but nothing really hard or scary. There was one place where it was best "to just not look down". We finally got to the point where there was a handline down a steep mud slope. Bob cut steps with his trusty hammer. It wasn't bad. We traversed along the mud slope until we could climb down into the stream passage. We were now in Roaring River. To the left was deep water. Our survey was to the right where there were just puddles. I sketched while Bill did cross sections and profile and instruments. Bob was point. Bob was bored. It was nice surveying big passage. I used 8.5 x 11-inch paper with my new folding book and sketched at 20 ft/inch. About halfway through, we surveyed through sections that had knee to thigh deep water. But that was the worst. The passage was typically 15 to 20 feet wide by 10 to 15 feet high. The floor was mostly scalloped bedrock with a coating of mud. There were cool scalloped mud banks and mounds that looked like bedrock. We surveyed till 8pm and then headed out. It took two hours to get out - out by 10pm. We surveyed 1093 feet for a 11.3 hour trip. Nick and company went to Keamper Ave and got out at 3:30am. Two teams went to the NW Passage and got out at 5:30am - long trips!

11/30/2024: Mammoth Cave, Carmichael entrance, Emily's Puzzle, KY. Participants included David Socky, Rory Knight, and Eugeniya Artemova. Bob Alderson, Gabriel (Gabe) Krammer, and Kat Jammer. We entered via the Carmichael Entrance and hiked the one mile to the Snowball Dining Room through strolling commercial borehole. We had to do this because the elevator next to the Snowball Dining Room was broken. The Carmichael Entrance also includes about 1000 steps down through a mined tunnel. Maybe not 1000, but a lot more steps than the New Discovery entrance. From the Snowball Dining Room, we continued down and into the cave until we turned off the tourist trail after about 200 feet. We eventually got to a sturdy ladder going down into a canyon. The canyon was probably free climbable, but the ladder was nice. We then continued down the canyon a good long ways until we got to around station C125. We also had 4 sections of deer stand ladders. At this point, Bob and his two team members took the ladders to look for the high leads. I took Rory and Eugeniya to the actual Emily's Puzzle section. To find our leads, we needed to find the H, L, or K surveys. We split up and looked in different sections. It was a 3-dimensional maze. I found the continuation of the C survey but got far enough I decided to come back. I decided to check one side lead to the right and actually stumbled on H4, which was one of the leads we were looking for. I went back and got the other team members. Looking around for the K survey, I found L7, which was exactly where one of the leads was. It was a low crawlway under L7. Rory and Eugeniya took the disto and white out and started the survey. I stayed out and took notes and sketched. The lead popped back out near X2, which was in a passage we used to get to H4. We spent the next hour surveying the maze of little passages between L7 and X2. I didn't fit in any of them, but they were short enough I could see enough to sketch. It was dry and comfortable. Just as we were finishing, Bob and group caught up with us. They had found us by following the bread crumb notes I had left. We looked around a little looking for other leads, which we found. But they were pretty small. The vote was to just exit the cave and call it a day. I got some Steven Bishop signature photos. The trip out was uneventful. It was snowing (flurries) when we got out at 5:30pm. Fun short trip with a whopping 83 feet in the book.

11/28-11/30, 2024: Kentucky Weekend. Bob Alderson, Bill Koerschner were on several CRF survey trips in Mammoth Cave KY - New Discovery area, China Wall, Emily’s Puzzle, Violet City, Roaring River, etc.

12/4/2024: Dressler Cave, VA. Participants included David Socky and Joe Zokaites. Keith Sweeney and Jim Schurman surface support. Our objective was to dig open a lead in the lower part of Dressler Cave and survey what was found. It was a 4.5-hour trip with 135 feet of virgin cave surveyed. See the December 2024 Carbide Dump article on Dressler Cave.

12/5/2024: Trish Geiger visited the Cave of Wonders on Catalina Island in the Dominican Republic. Pretty show cave! https://visitdominicanrepublic.com/destinations/cueva-de-las-maravillas/

12/21/2024: Susan Burr, Ben & Jessica Hester, and Alex Thompson visited Island Ford Cave, VA. Good trip, but they found broken glass and beer bottles all around and in the spring. They cleaned up what they could, as well as the entrance room. When the vandalism was reported to cave manager Mystik Miller, she visited the cave a few days later and got some of the big pieces of glass out of the spring.

12/21/24: Jerin Manalel and a friend who is a marathon runner visited New River Cave, VA. They went to the waterfall and explored the lower level rooms. They saw 6 bats: mostly big browns.

1/1/2025: Dave Socky went to a Southern Colorado Mountain Grotto meeting in Colorado Springs, CO. The meeting was in a private room of a Mexican restaurant starting at 7pm. There were about 30 cavers in attendance.

1/4/2025: Bob Alderson attended the Allegheny Co. VA Survey to Warm River Cave, VA. Bob, Corey Hackley, Marc Minton, Vonny Droms and three grad students encountered LOW (3”) air space; they did the bypass, and some sightseeing in the Historic Warm Branch of the cave, and saw many interesting climb-ups that should be checked. (NOTE – Warm River is CLOSED except to science and mapping.)

1/11/2025: McClung, WV. Participants included David Socky, Nikki Fox, and Eli Meyers. Nick Socky, Jason Sargent, and Marissa Loftus. We were almost snowed out of the trip. There were only 10 people at the field station for WVACS project weekend. Six of us went into Historic Entrance to the Little and Big Muddy's to mop up leads. Nikki, Eli, and I started with the left-hand lead in the access passage to the Muddy's. This was the longest piece we did. Then we cleaned up two small leads on the right in the Little Muddy's. Nick and team finished off leads in the Big Muddy. By the time we finished, around 9pm, we had finished off all the leads. The Muddy's are done! We came out to a 20 F evening around 12:30am. We had changed in the cave. We didn't get stuck in the snow, and we had surveyed 267 feet for a 12.5-hour trip.

1/15/2025: Burrus Cave #2, VA. Participants included David Socky, Keith Sweeney, and Jason Sargent. We went ridge walking in the snow and ice with 18 Degree F weather. It was sunny out, though. I used my micro spikes. The second to last thing we did was to find Burrus Cave #2 which was known but only had a sketch map from 1954. It showed an 'unexplored' 30-foot pit inside! The entrance was 7 feet long by 4 feet wide and was a 35-foot total vertical drop. Rope needed. We are excited to go back. Nothing else was found on our ridge walk. We did look at Massie #1, a 30-foot-deep dead bottom pit.

This Month’s trip – tomorrow, 12/18/2025, Lowmoor Cave, Allegheny Co. VA. Jeff Huffman is leader. 14 cavers have signed up for the trip! They hope to find the pictographs and the Fossil Room. A group of NC cavers has installed a new (hopefully less scary) ladder across the pit – BRG gets to check it out.

Next Month’s grotto trip –TBA (Hopefully a conservation trip in Dixie Caverns, VA.)

BUSINESS MEETING

BRG OFFICERS for 2025:

Chair – David Socky NSS 16334

Vice Chair – Susan Burr NSS 53888

Secretary – MarySue Socky NSS 24206

Treasurer – Marian McConnell NSS 37358

January 17, 2025 - BRG Treasury Report

Respectfully submitted by Marian McConnell.

Fund Amounts

$ 112.96 Cave Bucks

$ 2.00 Conservation Fund

$ 144.12 Equipment Fund

$ 5,851.77 General Fund

$ 6110.85 Total Funds

Asset Amounts

$ 186.00 Petty Cash

$ 5,689.14 BRG Checking Account

$ 235.71 PayPal Account

$ 6,110.85 Total Assets

Income & Expense from 11/15/2024 to 1/17/2025

INCOME

T-Shirts $ 57.00

Dues $275.85

Donations $ 5.00

Total Income $337.85

EXPEN$E$

Carbide Dump $43.47

Xmas Cards postage $ 50.37

Cricket Maze Cave donation $ 70.00

Total Expense $163.84

Net Income/loss $174.01

PayPal gross $55.00

PayPal fees $ 1.65

Read by Dave Socky (Treasurer’s. Assistant) who gave report in Marian’s absence (Marian is snowbound).

Committees:  

Newsletter –nice issue, thanks for the articles and trip reports. There will be no Feb. DUMP – Editor Dave Socky will be on safari. Communications and updates will be sent through Google Groups.

Membership –currently we have 45 members & 4 subscribers. Thank you for sending in your BRG dues. I apologize if I ‘hit up’ some members twice. 8 members still need to renew. (MSSocky)

ROCKS – attend Allegheny County Warm Springs Project on Wednesdays and the 4^th Saturdays of each month.(D. Socky)

Safety & Techniques –  No report. Nick Schmalenberger was not present. Has anyone heard about the squeezebox? Hopefully, Nick will bring it to the Winter Party this Sunday.

Membership Proposals:  Helene Ferguson, NSS 60182. Helene is sponsored by Barry Ferguson, NSS 12436, and Marian McConnell, NSS 37358. Helene left the room and people said nice things about her. Helene was voted in by acclimation! (11 votes). Welcome to BRG!

Old Business 

BRG Payment (PayPal) Account – Dave Socky has investigated various cash apps: Our current PayPal account has received $1.69 in fees for the past month – the fees are minuscule.

The BRG bank account offers ZELLE, for free. However, both BRG and the customer must be ZELLE members. After discussion, it was decided that:

· BRG will use ZELLE as a ‘free’ cash app for those with ZELLE accounts.

· BRG will also continue to maintain the BRG PayPal account (which charges fees).

o Anyone who pays BRG through the PayPal account will be charged a $1.00 convenience fee for the transaction.

VOTE: All in favor; Trish Geiger abstained. PASSED.

Lynn Ott – had paid ahead her BRG dues until 2032. Lynn died in October 2024. It did not seem right that we keep her money. Per Gene Harrison’s request, Lynn’s leftover dues ($70.00) were sent to the Cricket Maze Cave Association. There was some confusion: is this the BRG donation in Lynn’s memory? NO. This is separate from new business.

BRG Post-Christmas/Winter Party – at the Socky’s place, UPDATED: Sunday January 19, 2025. Noon – 5p. Potluck, BYOB. Caver Casual, friends and family are welcome. Lots of parking! Please drop by; otherwise, the Socky’s will eat all the monkey bread themselves.

BRG Meeting Space in 2025. We need a space that is either free or not more than $50/month, has enough room for 15-25 people, and a TV for viewing programs. We are currently at Logan’s Roadhouse – FREE, available on Friday nights. Do we continue to look? If Logan’s does not fix their TV, Dave Socky can bring a working TV for grotto meetings, if necessary. We will likely need to remind the Logan’s staff each month that we will be showing up around 6p.m. (They did not write down correct time, room was not set up, etc.)

Discussion: We will meet at Logan’s on Friday, 2/21/2025. We should reserve the room for the rest of the year. We can always cancel if we find that ‘perfect place.’ Trish mentioned Famous Anthony’s on Rt. 460E (horrendous traffic!) has a private meeting room with a TV.

Christmas Cards – BRG sent 70 Landowner Xmas cards. Only 3 were returned. MS Socky will check, and update landowner addresses if possible.

New Business

IO Report – has it been sent in yet? Chair Dave says NO.

Cricket Maze Cave - Susan Burr motioned that BRG donate $100.00 to Cricket Maze Cave in memory of Lynn Ott. Mary Sue Socky seconded. Vote – 11 FOR, 0 ANTI 0 ABSTAIN. Unanimous. Mail the money!

Conservation Cave Trip? – Susan Burr and Mary Sue Socky proposed an idea that the Feb. 22, 2025 grotto trip be to Dixie Caverns, as a conservation clean-up project. There is a list of various projects that can be done to spruce up the cave in 4 hours of work. The biggest inconvenience is there is currently no water in the cave – we will have to carry in our own water. (In addition, there is a tunnel full of old rotting moldy props from 2008 Haunted Cave that need to be removed from the cave.) Not sure about cleaning the tunnel, but BRG was interested enough to give the go-ahead to contact Dixie Management and set up the trip.

Poor Landowner relations – very pissed off landowner whose caves were pinned on Google by an unknown party. Spelunkers have been coming to his house all hours of the day and night asking for admittance. His farm fields (his livelihood) are being torn up by vehicle traffic. THIS IS NOT HOW WE TREAT LANDOWNERS!! This formerly friendly landowner has closed his 5 caves and land to all traffic through April, and he will run off any non-affiliated, non-NSS cave explorers. NEVER POST CAVE INFO ON THE INTERNET! Cavers are working to get the ‘pin’ removed and improve landowner relations.

Squeezebox Update – Nick Schmalenberger – No report at meeting. However, Nick reported via email to Chair Socky that the Squeezebox will make its debut at the Winter Party on Sunday!

Announcements:

· Rest in Peace Charlotte Lucas – passed December 31, 2024 in Waynesboro VA. Charlotte and Phil Lucas discovered Helectite Cave, VA and created the Owl Cave Water Sinks Karst Preserve.

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

· T-Shirts –If you ordered one, Pay Up! There are 17 remaining T-shirts! $12.00 each. Med. to XL, various colors: red, gold, grey, green, light blue, etc. Contact Susan Burr pondlady97@gmail.com for more information.

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

· Catawba Murder Hole Cave is CLOSED

· Norman Cave, WV – parking is a problem. Upset neighbors. Avoid cave until a solution is found.

· We are in Winter Bat Closure for some caves. WV – closed Sep 1 - May 15. VA – closed Oct. 15 – Apr 15.

· 2025 is the 100^th anniversary of Floyd Collins’ entrapment in Sand Cave, KY.

CAVER CALENDAR:

Jan 17, 2025 - BRG meeting 7p Logan’s Roadhouse

Jan 19 – BRG Winter Party, @ the Socky’s in Cave Spring, VA. Noon- 5p. Potluck, BYOB, see you there!

Feb 21- BRG meeting 7p Logan’s Roadhouse

Mar 21 - BRG meeting 7p TBA

Mar 22 – Meeting of The Explorer’s Club, NYC.

May 9-11 - Spring VAR, Hosted by Out of Bounds Grotto, at Spruce Knob, WV. NEW!

Jun 23-27, 2025 – NSS Convention, Cobleskill, NY.

Jul-11-19: NCRC Weeklong classes, Mountain Gateway Community College, Clifton Forge, VA. For more info, including prerequisites, visit: https://caves.org/ncrc/courses/ncrc-course-descriptions/

Cold Beer! 7:40p. 

Program: There was no program, since the TV did not work and there were no batteries in the TV control.

Minutes Submitted by Mary Sue Socky, Secretary