What Happened at the last meeting

November 28, 2005

There were 13 people at the grotto meeting tonight. Don Humphrey, Carl Werntz, Alan Carpenter, Chris Carpenter, Jason Thomas, Brian Masney, John Barth, Dave Riggs, Bob Griffith, Kevin Frick, Mike Ferber, Rich Finley and Doug McCarty. 

Items discussed were:
1. Adopt-A-Highway will be this coming Saturday. Meet at the Bowden parking lot at 9:30am. This needs support! At this juncture only two people have been able to commit to being there. There will be a horizontal cave trip afterward.
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2. The Christmas party will be at Bob and Mary's house in Morgantown at 4pm on Sunday, December11th. Bring a covered dish or something of the sort, your own beverages and a caving gift worth $15 (up $5 from previous years). Bob and Mary live at 106 Forest Drive in Morgantown. Directions are added below.
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3. Post Christmas caving trip will be to Cave Mountain on December 30th (a Friday). We will meet at Yocum's Store at Seneca Rocks at 9am. This is a horizontal trip, but is a hike to get up there. It'll be a fun day.
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4. Grotto helmets and lights. Bob reported that he got some nifty lights at Lowes for $19 apiece. Doug Moore is selling us five helmets at a discount. Kevin Frick will arrange to pick them up.
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5. Rich Finley brought in a 3 watt LED light that lit up the whole room. It was great. He paid 99 cents for it and $15 shipping and handling to get it to the US from Hong Kong. Watch out Mr. Stenlight!
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6. We discussed doing some more horizontal trips for newer cavers. We'll plan a Sharps trip for January or early February.
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7. Officers: a motion was made to keep the same slate of officers. No objections were raised, so a motion was made and voted on. So we're stuck with the same old (and young) faces.
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8. Reports were given on recent New Years Day and Tucker County survey trips.
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9. I showed people a rough working map of Panther Camp Cave. I had a slide show to go with it, but there were no projectors. Oh well. Maybe at the Christmas party.

The next meeting will not be until January 30, 2006. We have no meeting in December because of the Christmas party and the post Christmas cave trip.

There were 13 people at the grotto meeting tonight: Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Chris Carpenter, Alan Carpenter, Aaron Bird, Brian Masney, Rich Finley, John Trotto, John Barth, Don Humphrey, John Tudek and Doug McCarty. John Tudek is an experienced caver from Central New Jersey who has moved to Morgantown to go to WVU. Welcome!

Here is what happened:
1. The Adopt-a-Highway cleanup on old Rt. 33 will be meet at 9:30 am in the Bowden parking lot on Saturday, December 3rd. We have one more grotto meeting before then, so at the next meeting we can plan a caving trip to coincide with it--if folks are so inclined.

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2. We discussed the Christmas party. Since neither Bob Griffith nor Mary Davis were at the meeting, Brian Masney volunteered their house for the party. Rich Finley seconded the motion, but added that if it were inconvenient for Bob and Mary we could have it at his house. We're looking at the second weekend, but an exact time or date hasn't been set. We've done pretty well with Sunday afternoon/evening parties, so maybe we ought to look at that.

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3. The post-Christmas cave trip was discussed. Suggested possible trips were: Cave Mountain, Simmons Mingo, Bone Norman and perhaps, if we were willing to do a little surveying, and Jeff Bray would okay it, Maxwellton. Think about it and bring your favorite suggestion to the next meeting.

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4.Doug gave a website report. In the two years since we have had a counter, we have gotten 5100 hits. Most of the hits from search engines (mainly Google, Yahoo and MSN). We also get many hits from links. The busiest links that connect to us, in descending order are: NSS, the Mid Atlantic Karst Survey, VAR, WVUSG and Carnegie Library. We have gotten hits from 37 different countries.

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5. Brian and Aaron talked about the upcoming Druid/New Years Day weekend (November 11th through the 13th). Things will start on Friday evening and continue through Monday. If people want to spend the night they can stay at Aaron's house. If you have a battery powered hammer drill, bring it.

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6. Doug gave a status report on Shavers Mountain, including a report on the possible borehole in the dome Rick Lambert found in County Line Cave. Shavers Mountain Survey will meet this coming Saturday at 9am at Alpine Lodge in Alpena 10 miles west of Elkins on US 33.

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7. We discussed the progress in Tucker County in our recently accessed cave. We now have more than a half mile of survey. Brian showed a line plot of the cave and a working map. I discussed the fact that Doug had contacted Gordon Smith and found out that the cave was surveyed in the late fifties by John Eichenmuller and Bill Connor, both professors at WVU. They had an organization called NWVASS (Northern West Virginia Speleological Survey). Gordon had a map of Mill Run, but he believes it was stolen in 1966.Eichenmuller and my friend Wayne Davis also surveyed Cornwell Cave.

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8. Brian gave a slide show with some great pictures from Bridge Day.

The next meeting will be on November 28 at Three Ways Inn.

There were 15 people at the grotto meeting tonight: John Barth, Lee Stocks, Kevin Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Brian Masney, Jason Thomas, Don Humphrey, JoDanna Humphrey, Jeremy Rowan, Janelle Humphrey-Rowan, Bob Griffith, Dave Riggs, Rich Finley, Aaron Bird and Doug McCarty. Welcome to Lee, a veteren caver who just moved back to this area. I'm sure we'll be seeing more of him. And it was great to see former grotto member Aaron tonight.

Items discussed were:
1. A reminder that dues is due.

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2. We revisited the concern about life memberships not covering the WV Caver and being a drain on the treasury (such as it is). In the ensuing discussion it was decided that we would let the issue drop. There aren't that many life members--14--and it was felt that the drain on the treasury isn't all that much and is basically subsidized by the regular dues payers. So, don't worry life members, this issue is a dead horse.
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3. It was decided that we go ahead and buy new grotto helmets and lights.
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4. ****Bulletin: Tucker County weekend has to be changed in October because of Bridge Day--most of our survey members will be there. Therefore, we have pre-empted the weekend of October 22--when we had been talking about doing Bradshaw Run. That was the only weekend everyone could be there--so, Tucker County Survey will be on October 22 rather than the 15th as it should be. Special apologies go to Llew Williams, who had worked Tucker County into his schedule and planned the Bradshaw Run trip on the 22nd.

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5. Bob gave a trip report on VAR. He said there were excellent presentations by Devin Kouts and Barry Horner, and some excellent caving--he and Mary went to Marshall's Cave. He also said it was too darn loud until too darn late.
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6. Doug gave a report on Panther Camp Cave

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7. Doug told the following story: In MR Cave we found the name "Wayne Davis" in carbide soot on the wall. He was caving there in the 50's. We could deduce three things. If alive, the guy was almost certainly over 65 today--and probably in his 70's. He clearly had a connection to this region or he wouldn't have been in there. He was a caver. He is not listed in the NSS Membership Manual. I googled "Wayne Davis" and "caves". There were lots of guys named Wayne Davis, but one was the co-author of Bats of America. After some research, I found out that the author was a retired professor who had taught at the University if Kentucky. That made him a caver in this region who fit the age range I was looking for. I found a Wayne Davis who lived in Lexington--but there was no way to know if he was the right one. I finally found a picture of the bat expert Wayne Davis receiving an award at a bluebird conference. His nametag indicated that he was from Lexington. Bingo. I wrote him a letter asking him to call me if he was the Wayne Davis of MR. He called Sunday night. He is originally from Morgantown. He first went to MR when he was at Morgantown High. Unfortunately, he was unable to give me any real history other than the names of his companions. He could remember nothing about a survey. Oh well.

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8. Jason and Rich reported that they took four WVUSG members to Bowden last weekend and they all did the passage that connects the breakdown room by the shower room with the water course. One of these guys was a first time caver. Hopefully he wasn't scared off.
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9. Brian and Aaron did an excellent slide show of MR pictures and did a presentation on the progress in Cheat Canyon, and the probable connection of New Years Day, Druid and our downstream dig--and the fact that we need diggers. We are going to start doing regularly scheduled Tuesday evening trips.
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10. Doug pointed out that there are only three projects going in North Central WV at the moment (Shavers Mountain, Tucker County and Cheat Canyon)--and that our grotto is heavily involved in all three. He encouraged people to come out and get some mud under their fingernails.
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11. After the meeting was officially ended we talked about the progress in Hellhole, Shovel Eater and other caves. We also talked about Dave's nice new Stenlight failing on him in MR

The next grotto meeting will be on Halloween--October 31st. Maybe we should come in caver costumes.

There were 18 people at the Mon Grotto meeting last night. Alan Carpenter, Kenny Petrice, Kevin Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Carl Werntz, Brian Masney, Jason Thomas, JoDanna Humphrey, Jeremy Rowan, Janelle Humphrey-Rowan, Bob Griffith, Mary Davis, Islam Younis, Dave Riggs, Rich Finley, John Trotto, Benjamin Banks and Doug McCarty.  It was great to see Kenny make it back to a meeting.

Items discussed were:

1. New lights and helmets--this was tabled until OTR

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2.Adopt-a-Highway.. Doug gave a trip report on the litter pick up and vertical training afterward.

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3. OTR--Early folks will meet at Walmart in Elkins at 11am on Thursday. We did decided not to do the spaghetti dinner again this year. No specific trip plans were made--but a few of us are going up to Caplinger's Cave on Sunday. Mary is bringing a patio fireplace sort of thing we can use for a campfire.

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4. Dues--Bob wanted to remind everyone that dues is due at OTR. We also discussed changing the life membership rules in in order to make sure the cost of the West Virginia Caver is covered. That will be focused on more at OTR.

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5. Kevin Keplinger gave a Hellhole progress report and summary. Hellhole is now the 17th largest cave in the US. He also caught people up on what's going on in Germany Valley with Shovel Eater and Memorial Day.

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6. Dave Riggs gave trip report for a My Cave trip he, Llew williams and Justin Williams took this past weekend. He gave a favorable report on his new Stenlight

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7. John Trotto gave a report on their recent week-long trip to Bowden and the Sinks of Gandy. He explained the photographic technique of "painting" with light. He also told of how they took pictures in the Sinks every five or six feet clear through the cave to make a movie of the Sinks trip.

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8. Brian gave an update on the progress at New Years Day Cave.

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9. We remind everyone that Tucker County survey will be back in full swing in September.

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10. We reminded folks of Fall VAR at the RASS Field Station in Bath County and provided registration forms. 

The next meeting will be on September 26th.

There were 14 people at the Mon Grotto meeting last night. John Barth, Brian Masney, Doug Moore, Jason Thomas, Melissa Parker, Don Humphrey, JoDanna Humphrey, Jeremy Rowan, Janelle Humphrey-Rowan, Bob Griffith, Tim Bleech, Dave Riggs, Rich Finley and Doug McCarty.

Jeremy and Janelle have moved back to the area from Connecticut now that Janelle has graduated--congratulations, Janelle.

Items discussed were:

1. Adopt-a-Highway--the date was changed for this again. It will be next Sunday at 10:30am at the Bowden parking lot.
2. Vertical Practise--After the adopt-a-highway, we will do vertical practice at bear Heaven.
3. Grotto Helmets--I reported that we could possibly get a grant to pay for the helmets. Bob Griffith is looking into that.
4. Waybright Cave--Nate Waybright of the Cleveland Grotto may be able to get some money from his family to get a backhoe to dig open Waybright Cave, if we can locate it.
5. Trip Report--Tucker County Survey--we discussed what went on at the last one, and what we plan for the next one. 
6. Trip Report--Rich reported that he, Dave Riggs and another guy did a Bowden trip last week, and that Dave crawled through the tiny passage from the Breakdown Room (by the Shower Room) to the Watercourse. Aggh.
7. Trip Report--Brian gave a trip report from the convention
8. Stenlight. Doug Moore brought a Stenlight. We turned out the lights and played with it. Very impressive. Expensive, but impressive. (And I found out the grotto owes me $250 or so for the patches--found money that will enable me to get one.) 9. Whitesides--Brian announced a trip to Whitesides (a very high cliff) on the third weekend of August
10. Bridge Day--Brian's Bridge Day team is assembled, but they'll need support folks.

There were 11 people at the meeting last night. Bob Griffith, Mary Davis, Alan Carpenter, Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, John Barth, Carl Werntz (with Shannon), Dave Riggs, Doug McCarty and two new members, John Trotto and Benjamin Banks. (To John and Ben--welcome.) Dave also joined the grotto.

Items discussed were:

1. Helmets and lights: We could not put this off any longer, so a revised motion was passed in which we will buy six helmets and however many lights we need for those helmest (we already have 3 or 4 Petzl Zoom lights).

2. Garbage picker uppers. For the Adopt-a-Highway, we will get the four heavy duty garbage picker uppers.

3. Tucker County Survey is back up and running. Starting in July, we will meet at Tucker Country Inn in Parsons at 9am on the 3rd Saturday of every month. We have new caves being found in areas of the county that the geological maps missed and we now have the beginning of a master plan. Among other new developments, we may be able to dig into and open up Waybright Cave--with a backhoe.

4. We will do the Adopt-a-Highway pickup on August 13th. We will meet at 9:30 at the Bowden Parking Lot. The pick up will be followed by a Bowden trip (for our newer members) and then a rope pratice session at Bear Heaven.

We had trip reports and programs as well.

1. Kevin and Josh Keplinger gave a trip report on their descent into a well known vertical cave this past weekend as part of the Germany Valley Karst Survey this past weekend--during which Josh got his first taste of virgin borehole.

2. Bob gave a report on a Sharps trip he, Dave Riggs, Llew Williams, Justin Williams and some friends of Llew's went on. The interesting part of the trip was that they were approached by a landowner who asked them to check out a cave on his land. They did so. Llew believes it to be Pinnacle Cave--which was blocked, but is pushable with today's techniques.

3. Doug gave a Power Point presentation with pictures of MR and Bennetts Cave

Also, in a post meeting talk about lights, new member, John Trotto told us about 3 and 5 watt LED lights he has been working on that sound very cool. 

There were ten people at the grotto meeting tonight: Rich Finley, Jason Thomas, Brian Masney, Carl Werntz, Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, David Riggs, John Johnson and Doug McCarty. David has gone caving with Llew Williams and will hopefully be joining the grotto. John is from Huntington, and is a member of ESSO grotto, but has been working up in this neck of the woods. Hopefully, he will be able to join us caving and maybe even join the grotto.

Items discussed were:

1. Tucker County: MR Cave has been closed for many years--but we have limited permission to survey it. Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger and Doug McCarty went at least 4000 feet into it yesterday and Josh went on ahead and stopped in large walking passage--we stopped because Justin was getting cold. It is a classic Tucker County cave, but there is quite a lot of walking passage. You get wet and there is a brisk breeze blowing through. It has clearly been surveyed before, but no one knows where the map is. It is not in Tucker County Survey records. At this juncture we have permission to survey two closed Tucker County caves, and there will probably be more. Daniel Burge recently found a small 100 foot cave that he says is nicely decorated. Things are rolling in Tucker County and we're going to need help.

This weekend we will do a two day special Tucker County weekend. On n Saturday, we will do some survey stuff and maybe some recreational caving for newer folks. On Sunday we will do some intro vertical stuff at Acorn, Wilfongs Pit and Tombstone. Kevin is going to stake out a camping spot on River Road--on the Dry Fork River off of Rt. 72 (the first right after Red Run). Some of us will go down Friday night and camp. We will camp there Saturday as well. Day cavers can come to Tucker County in on Rt. 72 just north of Parsons at 9am both days to rendezvous with the campers. If you're going to camp, try to bring a little firewood. It should be a great time. If you need directions e-mail me and I will send you better directions after Kevin stakes out a camping space.

Although Doug Moore wasn't able to be at the meeting tonight, we took the liberty of resurrecting the third weekend of the month as Tucker County Survey weekend.

2. New Years Day Cave: Carl wanted to check out New Years Day Cave, so Brian Masney and Doug McCarty will meet whoever wants to go to the cave at the Harley Shop behind the Taco Bell near the Pierpont Exit on I-68 at 10 am on Memorial Day. New Years Day Cave is now the 2nd longest cave in Monongalia County.

3. Celebration of the Outdoors: On Saturday, June 11th, the grotto will participate in the Celebration of the Outdoors at Coopers Rock. We will do what we did last year--take people to Coopers Rock Cave, let them try ascending gear with ropes rigged in the trees, and (hopefully) Bob will give his slide show again. We had a good time last year, so come on out and bring your vertical gear.

4. Trash Picker Uppers and Helmets: Both issues were set aside for now.

5. Kentucky Trip: We put the Mammoth cave trip off until August.

6. Scott Hollow Trip report: Brian Masney, Rich Finley, Jason Thomas and Melissa Duncan were the only ones who made it. They were in the cave 12 hours. John Barth hit a deer in the fog on his way down and had to bail out. Hopefully his car isn't badly damaged.

7. Shavers Mountain: And we could use all the help we can get on the mountain.

The next meeting will be on June 27th.

There were 11 people at the grotto meeting tonight: Kevin Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Daniel Burge, Doug Moore, Don Humphrey, Jason Thomas, Melissa Parker, Brian Masney, Dave Olsen, Rich Finley and Doug McCarty.

Items discussed:

1. Patches. People can buy them in person for $5 apiece. People who want to order them will pay $5.50 a patch (37 cents for postage and the rest for the envelope). People who want to order a patch can send a check (made out to "Monongahela Grotto") for $5.50 a patch to Doug McCarty

We're also talking about putting the design on a t-shirt and a vinyl sticker. Stay tuned for more info.

2. Scott Hollow trip. Brian Masney will be the point man and contact the owner. I believe only NSS members can go into Scott Hollow now. The details will be posted to the internet and on the web site.

3. Tucker County Survey: We are going to do a Tucker County weekend on Memorial Day--Saturday May 28 and Sunday the 29th---On Sunday we will do a three beginner vertical caves--Acorn, Tombstone and Wilfongs Pit. Meet at Tucker Country Inn at 9am on both mornings. Some of us will camp Friday and Saturday night on the Dry Fork--it should be a good time.

4. If there is interest, we may do an intro trip to New Years Day Cave on Monday May 30th. Warning--the entrance is tight and awkward. At least one person who has tried to get through couldn't do it. We will finalize this at the next meeting.

5. Celebration of the Outdoors at Coopers Rock on Saturday June 11th. We are going to do this again this year. Details will be worked out at the next meeting.

6. Trash picker uppers. Because we do the adopt-a-highway we are going to buy 4 Orang-U-Tongs PRO trash picker uppers at 19.95 apiece. Since Alan Carpenter has dealt with these folks before, we will let him place the order and Bob will write him a check .

7. Grotto Helmets: In the past year we have needed helmets for a. the Coopers Rock Cave clean up, the Bartons Cave trip, a church group trip to Bowden, the Mystic trip and the Bowden beginners trip. On each of these occasions I have supplied the helmets from the ropes course where I work rather than use the grotto helmets--which are construction hard hats. Therefore, with all the money we made at Fall VAR we are going to spring for new grotto helmets and lights. Ecrin Rock helmets (yellow for easy identification) with Petzl Zoom lights will cost about $80 apiece. We thought we would get 10 of them. It was also suggested that when we have a large church or scout group we charge a nominal fee to pay for the batteries and depreciation

8. Sam's Club has nifty shorty wet suits for only 30 some dollars. They are only 2 mil on the sleeves and legs, but are thicker in the trunk area. I have one and I can tell you they are really nice for the money.

9. I had talked about planning a Sharps trip, but I only have two free saturdays between now and the NSS convention--and I need to have a few divorce prevention/grass cutting weekends in there somewhere, so I'll schedule it later in the summer.

10 We will also talk about the proposed trip to Mammoth Cave at a later date.

11. Brian Masney is still putting together his Bridge Day team. There are still three openings.

12. Brian said the Banff Film festival was great. One of his pictures won a prize.

Don't forget VAR this weekend at the State Fair Grounds in Lewisburg.

The next meeting will be on the next to last Monday of the month instead of the last Monday  (Memorial Day). So we will meet on May 23rd at Three Ways Inn

There were 18 people at the grotto meeting tonight including: Don Humphrey, Carl Werntz, Shannon Werntz, Alan Carpenter, Chris Carpenter, Doug Moore, Rich Finley, Brian Masney, Mary Davis, Bob Griffith, Dave Olsen, Justin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Kevin Keplinger, Doug McCarty and three new folks: Cheryl Vandergrift, Joe Vandergrift and Daniel Burge. All three joined the grotto. 

40th Anniversay Patch: is in production and will be ready by the next meeting. Doug Moore is going to look into getting the logo on a vinyl sticker

Adopt-a-Highway will be at 9:30am on April 16. Meet at the Bowden parking lot. The litter pickup will be followed by a beginner trip to Bowden.

Beginner Trip to Bowden: This will follow the litter pick up on April 16.

Vertical training/practise: Coopers Rock on April 23. Meet at the overlook parking lot at 9am. Among other things, we will rig a couple of treadmills to help people perfect their frogging technique.

Scott Hollow: A trip to Scott Hollow is on the calendar for May 21--thinking about doing the Omega Loop. Details will be worked out at the next meeting

New Years Day: There was a request that we do a local trip to the newly discovered New Years Day Cave. We will do that on Memorial Day--May 30.

The Banff Film Festival: will be in Morgantown on the second weekend of the month. There will be a sub festival featuring local adventure films--including several submitted by Mon Grotto/WVUSG members.

These will be shown at 123 Pleasant Street in Morgantown at 7pm on April 8th. Be there to root on the home team.

Bridge Day  Brian Masney is putting together a Bridge Day team. You need at least one and preferably more 250' rappels in order participate.

Friars Hole There is talk of a Friars Hole camping trip this summer and a caving/amusement park trip to Mammoth Cave and then Kings Island.

Misc: We also discussed VAR, the 2nd Annual Lutz Fieldhouse Jamboree and the upcoming WVASS meeting.

The next meeting will be at 3 Ways Inn on April 25 at 6:30 for diners and 7pm for the meeting itself.

In spite of a winter storm warning, there were 12 people at the grotto meeting tonight: Brian Masney, Don Humphrey, Jason Thomas, Doug Moore, Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Rich Finley, Bob Griffith, Mary Davis,   Doug McCarty and newcomer Ed Bosco

40th Anniversary Patch: It was decided that we go with the brighter red caving suit on the patch. To see the design click here. We will order 100 patches and sell them for $5. It was also suggested that we get them put on stickers. I will check into that.

Tucker County Survey: With Kevin Keplinger, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger and Danial Burge living in Tucker County and talking to a variety of people, it looks likely that there will be surveying opportunities there in the not too distant future, so instead of a surveying class we will try to give people interested in learning cave survey learning opportunities in Tucker County. Doug Moore suggested that the Tucker County Survey data could be kept at Kevin Keplinger's house in Hendrix. 

Vertical Training: A date will not be designated until the next meeting, but we will do a vertical training at Coopers Rock in April.

Adopt-a-Highway: We got a special congratulatory letter from the department of highways for a job well done over the last ten years. We will schedule Adopt-a-Highway for April. 

Possible Cave Trips: Rich Finley suggested a Bat Ranch weekend in March. There was some interest expressed, so he will check and see if something can be arranged. Rich also suggested a Kentucky cave trip in early Summer. That will be discussed again at the next meeting.

More possible Cave Trips: There were suggestions made that the grotto do a Scott Hollow trip, a Simmons Mingo trip and/or a Friars Hole trip. These are on the agenda for the next meeting.

WVU Adventure Day at the Rec Center is coming soon. Rich will find out about that and let us know when it is. Outdoors oriented organizations set up and and do demos. Last year, several of us were there and gave people an opportunity to try vertical gear at the climbing wall.

The Banff Mountain Film Festival will be in Morgantown on April 9. In conjunction with that, Adventure's Edge with be hosting the first annual Morgantown Adventure Film and Photo Festival in which local folk can share their short films, slide shows and photographs. There will also be a huge gear swap. If anyone is interested, click here

The next grotto meeting will be at Three Ways in on the evening of Monday, March 28. Meet at 6:30 to eat. 7pm for the actual meeting.

There were 16 people at the grotto meeting tonight: Brian Masney, Don Humphrey, Carl Werntz, John Barth,  Doug Moore, Bob Griffith, Mary Davis, Dennis Chaney, Ben Mirable, Dave Olsen, Josh Keplinger, Justin Keplinger, Kevin Keplinger, Llew Williams, Alan Carpenter,  Doug McCarty and John Minnig. This was the first meeting John has been able to attend in a while, so we were especially pleased to see him there. 

Survey Training: I brought up the fact that I believe a grotto needs to work on projects to grow and and survive. With that in mind, we are going to do a cave surveying class in the spring, and then go survey a cave. More planning will be done at the next meeting.

Vertical Training: We will also do a vertical class in the Spring and will do Acorn Cave as an intro. Once again, more planning will be done at the next meeting.

PowerPoint presentation on the Druid/New Years Day Project. given by Doug McCarty.

Intro to Surveying Instruments We showed people who had never surveyed, but were interested how instruments and tape are used in a cave.

Pictures Kevin Keplinger had photos of some of the stuff he is doing in Pendleton County, as well as various pictures of caves and blowholes taken by Josh and Justin in Tucker County. Very interesting stuff.