Archives - Show All 
  • 2005
    • July
      • GVG Welcomes the Highland County Grotto
        07/29/05
        A good friend of the Germany Valley Grotto and local caving stud Rick Lambert is also know as the Chairman of Highland County Grotto. We were happy to learn from Rick last week that he intends to start up a new effort in the valley to focus new attention on Apex, Ruddle, and Convention 2000 caves. A

      • A Collection of Updates From Shovel Eater Cave
        07/29/05
        On May 14th, a survey team returned to map and push in Shovel Eater cave. Equipment problems cancelled the survey effort but a new pit was dropped and a dig at the bottom pursued. That dig broke through and has led to a tremendous amount of large cave, including several pits, the deepest taped to 13

    • April
      • Shovel Eater Cave - The Push Continues
        04/25/05
        Our second trip since breakthrough and wouldn't you know it, we didn't bring enough rope. The 101 footer that I brought was enough to get down two drops, but after a short piece of borehole passage the third drop stopped us for the day. Good air though, and good leads left to push. Check o

      • Shovel Eater Cave, The Big Breakthrough
        04/19/05
        After twenty years of on again, off again attention a recent spate of trips to the dig face in Shovel Eater cave have finally bourne fruit. A nice drop of 40 feet with two more pits estimated at 50 feet each were the reward for eighteen consecutive trips of hard rock digging. See the illustrated rep

    • March
      • Shovel Eater - Almost There?
        03/28/05
        An excellent demonstration of persistence in the face of unknown possibilities exists below the wooded flanks of North Fork Mountain here in Germany Valley. It's called the "Shovel Eater Dig" and it has kept a team of hard digging cavers on tenterhooks for almost two years. On March 2

      • From Poland With Love
        03/21/05
        The intrepid Pawel Skoworodko from Speleoclub Warsaw (or Speleoklub Warszawski), Poland first met Mark Stover and Robert Monczka while helping out on the Bill Stone expedition to Cheve in Mexico last year. Pavel was such a cool guy that Mark and Robert invited him to the States for a couple months

      • Harper's Pit Photo Trip
        03/18/05
        Andrew Medley took a few of his chums to bop and crawl around in a perennial favorite here in Germany Valley, Harper's Pit. They took lots of pictures and I must say, what a nice looking bunch of cavers. Hope they'll come back to the valley for a visit, then we can show them around to some

      • The Shumans visit Memorial Day Cave
        03/16/05
        And they thoughtfully put together a very attractive photo album to tell the tale of their trip. Enjoy it here.


        Joann Smith guides in Memorial Day Cave

      • Shovel Eater, The Dig Continues, 12MAR05
        03/15/05
        On March 12th Tom Barton, Rick Orben, Jim Gildea and Barry Horner returned to Shovel Eater to continue the dig effort beyond the small break through reached in our effort two weeks prior. While they dug, I was taking in the warm temperatures of Napa Valley, too far away to participate, but wishing t

      • Peg Renwick's Trip Report from Memorial Day Cave
        03/07/05
        Peg's MDC Trip report is online in the Central Ohio Grotto's newsletter COG Squeaks and photos from her trip are available here

        Ava and Peg in MDC

    • March
      • Shovel Eater Cave Update - Feb. 26, 2005
        02/28/05
        The largest gathering of diggers ever (six all told) descended upon the snowy flanks of North Fork Mountain to pursue the dig in Shovel Eater cave. Known since the 1980's as an airy lead, Shovel Eater is now developing the reputation of a cave that only slowly gives up its secrets. See the big

      • Germany Valley Caving Recent Events From The Web
        02/21/05
        There's been a lot of caving going on in Germany Valley these last few years. Many reports from those exploits exist on the web and are interesting reads. But they can be hard to locate and for the sake of disk space they will not be replicated here. Instead they will be merely linked to as ava

      • GVG Website Launch
        02/21/05
        The Germany Valley Grotto website is relaunched. Earlier attempts to employ open source php-based content management systems did not work out as originally desired. This latest site is based in the capable and easily manageable "Simple PHP Blog" at:
        http://www.bigevilbrain.com/sphpblo