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

Votes

Cave rescue scholarship

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

Creating cave rescue committee, w/ chair & cochair

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

General Meeting

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