Cascade Grotto Meeting
Online-only (via google meet)
August 14

Presentation

Marbles Trip

Presented by Jennifer Jain

• Jennifer got started caving in WA, now in CA
• Marble mountains
  • around klamath forest area
  • PCT crosses part of area
  • lots of alpine caves, not well surveyed/explored
• big group
  • 6 hour drive from bay area
  • some people were on 4th of july weekend
  • some people stayed all week
  • some people just ate food and chilled
    • 4.5 miles, around 4k elevation gain
• camp at 6.2k ft
  • some caves are close to camp
  • others are at like 2k ft
  • some horizontal caves but mostly vertical
  • very deep caves/very cold
  • people often rent mules for the way up (~60 lbs)
  • planetary dairy cave (super short) named for formations on walls
  • bigfoot cave: lots of caves have connections to it
    • two long rappels with rockfall possibilities
      • also very cold, need lots of warmth
  • double arch cave: very cold
    • technical rope situations
  • lots of snow present: worried about getting in
• Jennifer’s first trip to check out the area
  • lots of poking around possible/ridge walking to check it out
  • very vertical, requires SRT gear
  • lots of survey possibilities
  • caves change a good deal due to snow
• alpine area so risky/cold
• caves are in the 30s F
• bears & deer are visible up there
  • bear cans are advised
• Eric: 8 hour drive from Seattle
  • hike is easier than cave ridge!
  • great caving
• Drew’s first time at the Marbles
  • very welcoming
  • wonderful alpine environment
  • LOTS of breakdown
    • first group in there so everything was breaking down
    • blowing like crazy
• lots of holes in the karst; many have never been explored (most are pretty vertical)
  • lots of drops are into domes
• Claude also was there about 10 years ago, pushed and explored lots of things

Trip Reports

Mistaken identity cave, by trout lake

Claude (8/14)

• right by root loops cave

Newton cave, on cave ridge

Aidan, Sarah, and Andrew (8/10)

• removed gross shag carpet
• couldn’t find colon crawl leading to 5th pitch
  • tim tried to find colon crawl and had difficulty
  • tim is very active and goes there often
  • thursday evening trips up to cave ridge
• doing some project work up on cave ridge to get better data

Bonanza cave mine

Eric, Joe, Andrew, Jessica, Will

• first trip ever there to cave
• dome that leads up maybe 50′
• very sketchy 300′ rappel into the mid-level mine
• cave is in contact zone between marble/volcanic
  • not seems to be very solutional (mostly faulting)

Canyon ridge trail ridge karsty-stuff search

Jessie, Allie

• monument 47, canyon ridge trail
• didn’t find that much

Poet’s crest

Mark, Andrew, kenny, Will, Sarah, Abigail, Joe, Amy

• went into duck under and peeked out some stuff
• surveyed royalty cave
• checkd out sinks full of snow
• found 200′ cave with a waterfall
• looks like some of the sumps may be able to be dived, eponymous
• 341 ft with dig leads in stream passage
• surveyed over 1k ft of passage
• have a promising sump at the top with LOTS of potential passage below
• will do multiple trips still this summer

Announcements

Cave ridge trip to hell hole (weekend of 8/19)
James Mooreshire

• primary intent is photography
• 50 ft vertical drop

Lake cave trip (weekend of 8/26)

• facebook page event
• easy beginner trip

Dynamited trip (early September)

• lots of groups (cascade & oregon grottos)

Wallowas mountains (8/17)

• this thursday
• backpacking & ridge walking
• 7 hour drive

Rocky mountain regional

• 2nd weekend of September
• bear mountains
• Eric & Sarah are registered
• alpine limestone
• main drain is 1k ft

Western regional (9/29)

• Sonora, ca

Tag fall cave in (10/7)

• classic TAG caving

Lee doing caving in southern KY

• reach out to lee for serious project caving there

Bellingham pub night

• Jessica organized (once a month or so)

Business

Meeting about meetings

• Eric: turns out people want monthly meetings
• Sarah: hybrid meetings are popular (to keep people involved who cannot make physical meetings)
• Robert: posted thoughts on facebook of historical discussions on this subject

Vertical gear:

• stakeholders: Eric, Lauren, Daryl
• haven’t gotten things going
• hurdles:
  • storage of gear
  • legal waivers for usage
  • will try to get it reapproved
  • previous gear was very informally stored

Aidan & Sarah:

• trying to create sensors to leave in caves
• if can make them looking to secure funds for production

Sarah:

• dye tracing on poets crest