The Massachusetts Caver - Boston Grotto

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POSTMASTERS OR MEMBERS Send address changes and all correspondence to: Boston Grotto, P.O. Box 380304 Harvard Square Station Cambridge, MA 02138-0304 Vice Chair Tom Kinsky Tomanddeena[at]gmail.com Trip Coordinator Keluo Yao keluoy[at]gmail.com Website Manager Morrie Gasser Grotto Officers Chair John Evans Jcevans.ncrc@verizon.net Treasurer Rich Lester rich[at]alum.mit.edu Secretary Kevin Harris Kharris[at]acm.org Website www.bostongrotto.org Morrie Gasser maintains the Boston Grotto website. Please email submissions and suggestions for the website to Morrie at his e-mail address above. Check the website for current information about upcoming trips and other Grotto events. E-mail list: Rich Lester administers an e-mail (re-mailer) list at members[at]bostongrotto.org . You can use this mailing list to send messages to all Boston Grotto members. To add, remove, or change your e-mail address on the list, please e-mail your wishes to the Grotto Secretary. Please remember to keep your e-mail and postal address current with us. Editor Chris Taylor ctaylor[at]gis.net Submissions of original material for the Massachusetts Caver are welcomed. Please submit articles, photos, or artwork digitally, as email attachment (ctaylor[at]gis.net) or on disk; or on paper, either hand-delivered at the Grotto meeting, or mailed to: Chris Taylor, 64 Meeting House Path, Ashland, MA 01721. Please note: we cannot print copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder. Terms of Use: If you reprint, copy, or duplicate any part of this newsletter, please acknowledge its source and credit its author. Membership in the Boston Grotto costs $15 per calendar year and includes one year of newsletter issues. Meetings are held the first Wednesday of every month at 7:30 p.m., in MIT's Building 32, Room 124, or a nearby room if 124 is not available. Inside This Issue About The Cover The Massachusetts Caver July — August 2012 Vol. XXXI No. 4 At the July 2012 BG Meetings 3 Maya-Conned! 4 Jeff Moore took this photo, cropped to fit on the cover, from a trip to Piercy’s Mill Cave in West Virginia, June 2012. The Massachusetts Caver Subscriptions are in digital PDF format free to club members. To join the club and automatically subscribe to the digital version contact the Treasurer. Come to the meetings at MIT’s beautiful downtown Cambridge MA campus, held the first Wednesday of every month at 7:30 PM! We discuss recent trips, watch some interesting presentations on caving and related subjects, and plan & organize cave exploration trips. ERRATUM: In the previous issue, Jed Breed is the fellow in the sweatshirt, while the individual identified as Jed is actually Max McClaren. My apologies for any confusion. Page 2
Vol. XXXI No. 4 At the July ‘12 Meeting Dave Crusoe & Rich Lester 11-July-12, Stata Center Room 124, Attendance: 22. Presiding: John Evans This month we had around half a dozen members of the MIT caving club in attendance, which helped swell attendance to 22, up from the usual 16 or so. Recent Trips: On June 24 2012, Dave Crusoe and Dan Schott led a trip to the Lanesboro karst in Western MA. Other attendees included Camille Richman, Ramon Armen and Zhu. The group poked their heads in several small and tight caves, and Dave and Dan discovered that one thought not to go actually continues a couple hundred feet with careful maneuvering for those cavers not dimensionally challenged. From June 25 to 30, John Evans, Rich Holub, Chris Taylor, Aaron and Heidi Tester and former members Steve and Joanne Stokowski attended the NSS convention in Lewisburg West Virginia, along with about 1,300 other cavers. The BG group visited many caves and watched the Salon photo show, which included MANY awardwinning photos by former club member and noted photographer Kevin Downey. At the end of the week-long convention, a huge storm whipped through the fairground, causing significant damage including more than $3,500 in damages to both Steve and Rich’s trucks. See story later in this issue. On June 27 2012:, Tom Kinsky, Rich Lester, Leander Nichols, Morrie Gasser, Dan Schott and Aaron Tester entered the Ack Shack entrance of McFail's Cave and attempted to pass through the crawlway. This was heavily silted up, and required extensive digging. Ultimately the smallest cavers made it through, but communications broke down, and Tom Kinsky and several others gave up waiting and retired to the surface near the Halls Hole entrance for some much-deserved goofing off. Eventually, the cavers that made it through the Ack Shack crawl came arrived at the base of the Halls Hole drop, and the entire group rejoined,. However, by this time the group could not pursue the planned bust-ass trip to the far reaches of the cave. Tom vowed to return in August and try again. On June 30, Dave Crusoe led a trip with Dan Schott, Ramon Armen, Camille Richman and Emily Tencate to Knox Cave, discovering a section not far from The Lemon Squeeze that nobody in the group had seen before. On July 3, Tom, Shawn and Paul Kinsky, Dan Schott, Morrie Gasser and Glen hiked up hiked up Mount Monadnock to watch local July 3/4 fireworks and cook boil up some lobsters they had packed in. Morrie took some spectacular twilight and night pictures with his new Sony NEX-7 camera, a rather expensive “bridge camera” that features a large, high-resolution D-SLR sized sensor in a compact camera body. Morrie has vowed never to take this gem of a camera into a cave. Upcoming Trips: July 14 2012: Vertical practice, probably at Quincy Quarry, Quincy MA. Contact Dave Crusoe. August 4 –5 2012 (tentative dates): Tom’s Return to McFail's Cave, NY, BUST-ASS CAVE TRIP! Second day will consist of a visit to Young’s Cave. Contact Tom Kinsky. Vertical experience (SRT) required for McFail’s. Wetsuit or partial wetsuit strongly recommended. September 15 — 16: Fall NRO, and possible Bentley's Cave Race, New York near Bentley’s Cave. Contact Dave Crusoe Business: None this month. Presentation: Attendees watched "Cave People of the Himalaya," a video by PBS about ancient burial artifacts and human remains stored in caves perched in cliffs in the Himalayan mountains. Fourteen meeting attendees went out for pizza after the meeting to discuss caves, caving and upcoming trips. Page 3
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