Cascade Grotto Meeting
Hybrid meeting (Phinney Neighborhood Association and Google Meet)
Wednesday May 1, 2024
General meeting
Trip reports
Church mountain cave weekend of April 28
- Aidan & others (17 people!)
- successful trip
Scott’s cave & others @ Helens
- Arhlin showed some passages in Scott’s to Bram, Sean, Eric, & others
- Surveyed a small cave
Mexico expedition
- Eric was caving, sketched 1 km of passage
- got injured/sick and sat out much of the time
- lots of people dropped out so only 6 km were done total
Dead horse
- Alex & others
- Rope ladder up at Rat hole
Announcements
Western Regional registration is up
- Weekend of Sept 19
- Will be in Cougar WA
Beginner weekend
- Weekend of May 4
- At cougar, lots of options available
Vancouver island
- Weekend of May 17
- Organized by Megan
- Fill out form by May 3
- All horizontal cave
Wolf beginner vertical trip
- May 31
- Organized by Dusty
Vancouver island, Thanksgiving cave
- June 15
- Richard leading
Daryl giving away stuff
- a book about caving in Mexico
- NSS shirts
Presentation
Fisher ridge cave, Kentucky Cave Rescue
Presented by Sean Lewis
Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qvDNwX8ZNNPO9fcrM_4eiaxQwPRimF_FmYdZQ_dnV3Q/
Summary
- 2nd longest cave rescue in US history (83 hours)
- over new years 2024
- patient (Paul) broke both bones in leg 8 hours into cave
- SPAR was absolutely needed here
Incident
- breakdown pile shifted, tried to dodge boulder
- patient only had 3 working limbs
- moved mostly under own power once splinted
- used rigging & sked when need-be
- alpine-style rigging (i.e. rope does not touch rock)
- used petzl pulse & concrete anchors
Conclusion
- lots of rigging skill was needed to get patient out
- wilderness first responder skills useful
- surface support was important
- SPAR course is great! take it
Business meeting
Old business
Treasurer report
- 76 paid members
- 9259 in bank acct
- still need to get bank account transferred over
- if anyone needs reimbursement, email megan
Scholarship
- still waiting on Sarah for this
Newton cave ropes
- waiting on summer
- Eric posted map (somewhere) on pitch lengths
- Dusty did not get ropes yet because we do not have lengths (9.5 mm & 11 mm options)
Newsletter
- Garret resigning as newsletter editor
- looking for assistance here; reach out to Eric
New business
White Nose Syndrome info
- Sarah will prepare slides about WNS and what we can do
Vancouver Island gear
- Loaner gear needed for BC trips
- Megan working w/ VICEG
- discussion on how we should be tracking our own gear (e.g. spreadsheet)
- tabled for now
Projector
- Daryl will sell grotto the projector
- details to be discussed later