Cascade Grotto Meeting
Phinney Neighborhood Association/Zoom
September 28

Presentation: Scapegoat 2022 expedition

Overview

• Scapegoat is a 240k acre wilderness in Montana
• Part of a 2.54 million acre roadless area
• Massive karst area explored in the 70s but not much later on
• Large pits up on plateau are plugged up by snow most of the year, creating caves
• Approach is 30 mile gravel/dirt road, then 13 mile hike in
• Mules haul much of the gear/food to camp
• Weather is highly variable: sunny, smokey, or even snow
• This year is the 50th anniversary of the wilderness creation

Caves

• Green Fork: main entrance
• Kathy’s Icebox: near Greek Fork, target of the expedition
• New caves found!
  • Eric found 5 caves up on high cliffs:
    • 3 fairly accessible
    • 2 required climbing
    • Surveyed 2 of the caves

Promising Leads

• Bobby pushed a lead of a dome (crab butter) but only lead to a big room
• Resurveyed One More Day cave, pushed a lead that may go to Scapegoat
• Examined pits on the plateau
• Built a dam out of clay to divert a waterfall and went down
  • found a new lead that goes but ran out of rope
  • Bobby did a climb to find a massive passage (40 ft by 60 ft) that lead both ways
• Half-moon park (other side of the valley) may have caves but no easy access (250 ft climbs)

Kathy’s Icebox

• Tough access: requires rappel down, climb up, or long through trip
• Consists of large canyon-like passages up to 80 ft tall, only a few ft wide
• Some crawly passages but mostly walking
• Rigging required for some passages
• Sections are fairly wet: “lake” goes up to the waist
• Kathy’s Icebox used to be filled with ice; not as much anymore
• Lots of formations hidden away including calcite rafts

Decadence

• five star backcountry dining, making pizza, steak, biscuits, cake, etc

Questions

• How deep is it?
  • 1400 ft of possible depth, deepest known pit is ~250 ft
• What is the temperature?
  • Water is 34 F, air is 35-40 F
• Are bears an issue?
  • Definitely around and we hear reports but haven’t been so far

Trip reports

• Remapped cave near Mt Saint Helens crater
  • Eddie Cartaya has been lead there for years
• Surveying caves in Alaska
  • Caused areas of wilderness to be protected from logging/mining
• Trout lake caving/digging
• Bonanza queen mine: tried to access marble cave
  • Cave sits on inaccessible 2nd level of 3 level mine
  • Requires climb up or down mine shaft
• Poet’s crest surveys ongoing
• Ape cave cleanup
  • Vandy got a battery-powered pressure washer to clean graffiti

Announcements

• Western Regional in Nevada is this weekend
• Cave ridge trip up to Cascade this weekend
• Poet’s crest surveying this weekend
• Every weekend there’s caving in Trout Lake, Claude will be digging
• Dead horse cave in November 12 lead by Brad
• Dusty has a Dynamited/Wolff trip, thinking 10/22 (open to suggestions)
• Nason ridge later this month: possible fissures to explore
• Ape cave cleanup: Oct 29 – Nov 5
  • they will have a generator/water and will be able to camp in parking lot
  • contact vandy to assist w/ cleanup
  • email information is on facebook & google group

Official business:

• Mark Garnick wants to buy a survey device (BRIC 4) for $850
  • only good device now as Disto X isn’t available for purchase
  • could be hard to track such a thing: we could lose it
  • would people use it?
    • seems like there’s some interest
    • they don’t last forever: 4-6 years
  • no vote was taken
• Eric proposes NCRC scholarship proposal
  • teaches people cave rescue (requires vertical cave experience)
  • do we want to only have 1 person per year?
  • should this be best fit or first applicant?
  • how does this get back to the grotto?
  • tabling discussion for later