Cascade Grotto Meeting
Hybrid meeting (Phinney Neighborhood Association and Google Meet)
Wednesday April 3, 2024

Votes

$500 for West Regional Gauntlet event

Sarah proposed, Megan seconded

• 7 for, none against

Presentation

Belize expedition

Panti Pit expedition 2024
Presented by Amy Kolor

Overview

• coordinated with belize institute of archeology (cannot publish photos online)
• discovered in 2009
• in town of el progresso under general store
• entrance in sewer of general store
• searching for secondary entrance (known to connect to Barton, popular tourist cave)
• mennonite community (do not change in the open, etc)

Cave Info

• 9.8 km surveyed as of 2024
• limestone w/ borehole
• 360 ft of raps over 8 drops
• lots of bad air (high co2)
  • limiting factor of leads
• 80-90F average temp in cave

CO2 risk

• levels:
  • 0.039% normal
  • 0.5% OSHA limit
  • 2%: can take a few days to return back to normal
  • 3%: dizziness
    • self-imposed limit for caving
  • 5%: risk of death
• misconception: co2 is a heavy gas therefore it pools
• causes: degassing of trip water, decomposing organic matter
• deep caves: molecular diffusion doesn’t happen fast enough so it “pools”
• difficult to predict where in the cave gets high CO2 levels (theorized correlation with weather)

Details about exploration

• cave is theorized to be very old (ancient formations decaying)
• lots of swimming (but water is nice and cool)
• explored heavily decorated 13m pit (w/ 13m dome)
  • nicknamed “ikea”
  • liberal use of v-threads for rigging
• cool features
  • lots of flowstone
  • rimstone dams
  • cave pearls
  • helictites
• animals
  • so many bats
  • lots of bugs
• you to can be in an expedition!
  • be honest about your skills
    • leaders would rather have someone who you can trust to be incompetent rather than you cannot trust if they’re competent

Q&A

• why is it called a pit?
  • probably because that’s how it started
• why is it called panti?
  • probably because of panties found in the original pit
• what’s this partnership with the belize archeological society?
  • all underground locations are owned by them
• are there human artifacts?
  • no; original team was interested in them but stopped exploring them
• how do i join expeditions?
  • probably reach out to eric; good to network with those who have gone on expeditions
  • find a way to be useful/offer skills (team sizes are restricted by requirement)
• how bad is the sewer water?
  • not really that bad; thought of it was the worst part
  • some people have gotten sick during the trip but not sure if it was from the cave or just food

Trip reports

Jackman creek cave (1.5 weeks ago)

• sarah & others
• several feet of progress on dig

Little red river (3 weeks ago)

• bram & others
• need to get key from USFS
• have to take/give back cave during work hours
• key didn’t work, so had to squeeze in through the bars
• USFS said they’d fix it, eventually
• hoping to re-run this for beginner trip

Kims cave & Lake cave (3 weeks ago)

• bram & others
• kim is small lava tube
• neat lava formations

Cheve (in March)

• sean lewis & others
• found new cave did connect to cheve
• lead to unstable breakdown after 60m
• nice half-day trip down to in-cave camp and explore from there

Announcements

April 27:

• aidan to lead church mountain cave (in concrete)

May 11 & 12:

• in Mt Vernon
• Dusty leading/
• RSVP on facebook & looking for volunteers
• beginner vertical trianing on May 11
• more advanced training/companion rescue May 12

Mid-may

• possible trip to vancouver island lead by Megan

Vertical training

• hopefully doing some in olympia/tacoma
• planning on starting some @:
  • mountaineers wall in seattle
    • marymoor park climbing wall in redmond

Beginners trip

• in cougar, near St Helens
• first weekend of may
• signup will be on facebook/discord/website
  • will have contact info, medical info, carpool info
• travis & sarah are organizing
• sarah & bram are organizing individual trip leads
• last year
  • 60 people
  • 6 caves

Vertical Training Commission course

• first weekend in may
• Travis going
• Eddy Cartaya lead

Small party cave course

• second week in August
• Drew & Amy going
• Eddy Cartaya lead

Vancouver island/British columbia cave rescue

• Memorial day weekend in may on Vancouver Island
• Sarah & Maurice going

Business

Treasurer report/finances

• we still don’t have access (need to fill out a form or two)
• we are indebted thousands of dollars to eric and need to get this done
• hopefully will get this resolved by next meeting
• had 82 active members as of last meeting
  • at least 25 people in this meeting!

Old business

• New rescue resource, Hannah Keith
• Reimbursement:
  • ropes for Newton (have not yet been purchased by Dusty)
  • teleconference equipment (has been purchased)
  • WR expenses paid by Eric

New business

$500 for Gauntlet at Western Regional

• cuts into profit of WR (we’re splitting w/ oregon grotto)
  • very cool event volunteers are willing to cross the country for
• point of contact: andrew ericson (has done work on poets crest)
  • sent us a site authorization

$200 for scholarship fund seed money

• for rescue training
• will present more formally in an upcoming meeting