Meeting Minutes June 2024

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Cascade Grotto Meeting
Hybrid meeting (Phinney Neighborhood Association and Google Meet)
Wednesday June 5, 2024

Votes

Cave rescue scholarship

  • PASSED
  • Proposed by Sarah
  • Seconded by Bram
  • 8 for, none against

Creating cave rescue committee, w/ chair & cochair

  • PASSED
  • Proposed by Sarah
  • Seconded by Bram
  • 9 for, none against

Trip Reports

Beginners trip in cougar

  • (May 4, 5)
  • lots of attendees (22+)
  • trips to lake, scotts, lape, little red river, pillars of hercules

Pillars of hercules

  • (May 11, 12)
  • sarah, bram, & friends
  • also went to lake cave

Cave ridge (cascade) resurvey

  • (May)
  • bram, maurice, sarah
  • did about 100 ft

California cave research foundation

  • (May 25-27)
  • bram
  • resurvey of caves

British Columbia cave rescue course

  • (May 25-27)
  • at horne lake on vancouver island
  • spar course & cave rescue responder course

Prerigging trip

  • (May 25-27)
  • dusty & laina
  • prerigged 80% of cave
    • rigging will remain through the season
  • wolf den rigged
  • upper wolf
    • bolts added
    • traverse line added

Beginner vertical weekend

(June 1, 2)

  • dusty & laina
  • top highlight:
    • hand sanitizer in the latrine!
    • zipline
  • had 25 attendees

Announcements

Western regional

  • registration is now open

Convention

  • first week in july

Thanksgiving cave

  • registration for trip to VI is now closed/trip full

NCRC level 1

  • over three weekends in california
  • (registration is not open yet)

Trout lake trip

  • (june 8, 9)
  • lead by Brad this weekend
  • post on facebook page

Cave ridge

  • Bram
  • doing some trips on cave ridge

New ropes for cave ridge

  • Dusty ordered ropes for cave ridge
  • didn’t have 150 ft lengths
    • asked for “the longest 100ft-ers”
    • 9.5mm ropes
    • memorial day sale (3 ropes for $120)
  • carry up rope during camping time

Presentation

Knots

  • lead by maurice
  • Covered knots
    • figure 8
    • figure 8 follow-through
    • double figure 8
    • alpine butterfly

Business meeting

Treasurers report

  • hasn’t been updated since last month

Cave ridge ropes

  • Dusty’s new ropes:
  • atwood ropes
  • 3×100 for $120
  • 9.5mm HTP

NCRC regional coordinator

  • Hannah Keith
  • Represents WA, OR, AK

Cave rescue scholarship

  • Lauren Kenyon cave rescue scholarship
    • proposal included
    • $250 will be donated once per year
    • donations can be offered by others
  • Passed by vote
  • Amendments can be offered at next meeting

Washington cave rescue resource (WCRR)

  • subcommittee of grotto, internal to grotto
  • nominations can be offered by email list by the meeting
  • will meet 2x a year

Organizational structure

  • dusty self-nominating for co-chair
    • decade of cave rescue experience
    • works in industrial rescue
  • sarah self-nominating for co-chair
    • has taken a number of cave rescue classes
  • Committee creation passed by vote above

Cave rescue class

  • OCR: orientation to cave rescue
  • Proposal to be by cougar
  • Lead by hannah keith (ncrc coordinator)
  • possible leaders
    • dusty (WA)
    • john punches (OR)
    • eddie cartaya (OR)
    • naiomi by mt rainier (?)
    • tom evans (NM)
      • Drew took horizontal spar course with him
  • Hannah could teach weekend of Aug 10-11, 17-18
  • spar class is right after (13-18)

What is OCR?

day 1

  • how to handle a litter
  • play with cave phones
  • what happens in a rescue
  • what should you have in your pack
  • basic medical

day 2

  • mock cave rescue scenario in cave
  • see how the logistics really work to assist
  • may cover some vertical cave rescue techniques

Zach parsons: has a summary/proposal out for callout list

  • big callout list for trips
  • work in progress
  • Van has a big list previously was used in WCCR that is out of date that could be a good reference

Renato was in a course lead by John Punches @ dynamited

  • lots of work in doing all of the coordination
  • sar/sheriffs departments don’t have much knowledge of what we do and can take some convincing

White nose syndrome

  • decontamination station required for western regional
  • WNS has been detected in 2016
    • but as far as we know nothing has been detected in caves
  • either:
    • 55C (130F) water for 20 minutes
    • use approved chemicals
  • see: whitenosesyndrome.org
  • theoretically no gear that has been in Washington state should be used on Vancouver Island
    • this is an ask by VICEG (vancouver island cave exploration group)
    • vancouver island dedicated gear is requested
      • we may try working out loaner gear
  • we may make a white nose committee
  • Jaq mentioned: may wish to coordinate with other grottos in the region to deal with this
  • AK has no WNS, so similar to Vancouver Island situation
    • prince of wales island has most caves
  • concern may be this is a trust issue:
    • do people actually decon their gear

Newsletter

  • Jaw & Bram working on newsletter for last year

Halloween trip

  • may be first weekend of Nov
  • we need to remind people to bring warm weather gear
  • any objection to that being in November speak to Bram

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