Chouteau Grotto Minutes from the February 4th, 2004 Meeting:



Meeting called to order at 7:15, 7 members present.





Secretary's report: secretary not present, Ernie Bhend covering the minutes



Treasurer's report: treasurer not present.

  MSS Liaison Report: Rita reported that the MSS is needing our annual

report. Discussed whether or not Joe Dom is still working on this? Marck

stated he will check on this/try to e-mail Joe.

  Dues to MSS need to be paid ($20.00). Marck will address this with

Kevin.

  Spring MVOR ñ will be held at Holston Mill (State Park?) over the

last weekend in April. Holston Mill is northwest of Springfield, Mo. More

information is available at www.mvor.org. MSS is planning a

display/presentation for the MVOR, possible topic ñ survey techniques

  Scott House with MSS is working on a cave lead list ñ should be

available soon

  Cave files/distribution of data has been moved from Jefferson City

to Springfield ñ now located at the SMSU campus. There was a question as to

who to contact for cave maps ñ Rita thought it was still Ken Thompson

  "Adopt a Quad" ñ a new program where grottos can become involved in

locating the caves in a given quad and establishing landowner contacts ñ

Scott House is getting this up and running. More information should be

available soon

  MCKC now managing Bruce Cave, Crystal Cavern(s), Cookstove, Holmes

Hollow among others. Crystal Cavern(s) was recently broken into/damaged. No

further details given.

  New MSS website now up and running: www.mospeleo.org. Rita said this

is a great website. Lots of pictures, easier to navigate, more

professional/polished that previous website.

  MSS voted on information that was given out regarding cave

locations/etc. ñ nothing beyond quad level to be given out

  Cave locations now to be used by MoDOT when planning new roads ñ

according to the policy new roads must be at least 500 feet from a cave

  MSS t-shirts ñ with MSS logo ($10.00) and coffee mugs ($5.00)

available

  Paul Johnson made a recent donation to MSS (? Amount) ñ has made

many large donations in the past

  Next MSS meeting May 15th. Location still pending/undecided.





Foresight editor's report: Bob Lurch not available to continue as foresight

editor ñ has too many other obligations. We need to find a new Foresight

editor. Suggestions were made that Foresight be worked on by a

group/committee to divide the workload. Suggestions were also made to change

the format to either black-and-white with a full-color master copy (to save

money) or to change the format to a totally digital version that can be

downloaded from the website. Rita said she would be willing to help with

this, but needs someone with computer access and experience to help with

this. Again, it was recommended that this become a committee/joint effort.

Marck will address this again at the next meeting. IF anyone is available to

help, let Marck or Rita know.



Quartermaster's report: All equipment in good working order and accounted

for. Mike mentioned that the current headlamps are getting worn out,

recommended we invest in some new headlamps. The Alpine Shop is planning a

sale on LED headlamps in the next 1 to 2 months. Mike will talk to one of

the owners regarding this and will get more information on models and

prices. He will bring this to the next meeting and re-address the issue.



Old Business:

  Membership manual ñ Joe Dom is reportedly still working on this.

Marck will contact him for an update

  Winter Campout ñ Ennis Cave, Pleasant Grove AR. Feb 13th -15th,

2004. Ernie Bhend had all the information for the trip. The campsite is

primitive but has tent pads, fire rings, clear area, compost toilets, well

water, gravity feed shower (would need to fill with hot water), shelter

house with loft that can be slept in. The cave itself is wet in places but

mostly dry. A caretaker named Tim McClain essentially lives at the cave and

hopefully will be available to guide the trip. The landowners recommended

providing food and beverages for Tim (he likes fruit juices apparently) and

dog treats for his dogs, stating that if we are nice to him he may take us

to parts of the cave that most people don't get to see. The plan is to camp

Friday night, cave all day Saturday, camp Saturday night, and possibly cave

Sunday morning, depending on everyone's schedule. Mike Morgan and Ernie

Bhend are driving down Friday afternoon ñ leaving Columbia around 1:00PM. If

anyone has any questions or needs additional information, contact Ernie

Bhend at ekbhend@hotmail.com or call 499-0711. Please let him know if you

are planning on going on the trip. NOTE: If the weather is bad that weekend,

we will cancel the trip and re-schedule

  Directions to Ennis Cave: go to Mountain View, Arkansas. Take

highway 14 east towards Batesville. 13 miles out you will come to St. James.

Turn left on Younger access road. Go 3.5 miles with a right at the first

fork and a left at the second fork. You will go over a rise next to a dry

creek bed and see a guard rail. At 3.5 miles, turn left into the woods. The

gate is about 100' off the road. The cave is º mile further up the valley.

  Stream Team - Amber Spohn should have more information soon on

upcoming stream team events/activities. She will be looking for volunteers

for this. Let Marck or Amber know if you are able to help out. An article on

the Stream Team is expected to be in the March issue of Missouri

Conservationist.





New Business:

  Update of the Grotto website - the website is needing to be updated

in several places. Marck is trying to get ahold of Mike OíLaughlin regarding

the website to see if he needs any help or additional information for the

site. More on this will be discussed at the next meeting.

  Rutherford Cave - there is growing interest in re-mapping the cave.

According to Daryl Greaser there is a ìhidden roomî not shown on the current

map. Attempts to contact the landowner are being made. Ernie Bhend is

talking to Rick Walk about getting permission to map the cave. Plans are to

clean-up and restore the cave as much as possible at that time. Ernie will

keep us posted on the progress of the project.



Upcoming Events:

  Winter Campout - February 13th, 14th, 15th - see above

  Ozark Extreme - April 2-4, Branson Missouri. Contact Krysta Davis

through the NSS webpage for more info.

  MCKC Meeting - March 6th, 2004 at the UMR Library, Rm. 203 - Rolla,

Mo.



Cave Reports:

  Ernie Bhend led a group into Hunterís Cave on January 10th. He had

pictures of the gate showing two bolts that are out of the rock, one of

which is gone entirely, from the upper right side of the gate. The need for

repair of the gate was discussed.  He also reported that the emergency cache

placed in September by the grotto is in the same position it was initially

placed (on a mud bank in the junction room) and appears undisturbed. The

paint on the cache is intact as well. The trip went well and everyone had a

good time, except a few of the cavers did not care much for the water crawl.

Several eastern pipestrelle bats were seen in the cave.

  Ernie Bhend also led a trip to Spaghetti Cave in Calloway County on

Martin Luther King day. The entrance belly crawl had about 3 inches of

ice-cold water at the time. The outside temperature was 23 degrees. Despite

this they still had a great trip.

  Kirsten Alvey had a whole list of caves she had visited recently,

including several on a gentleman named Fred Gravelleís (?sp) property near

Rubidoux Cave. They hit 7 un-named caves, including one pit. 4 of these had

significant distance. The owner is interested in having these mapped. She

and her boyfriend are involved in GPS location of caves throughout Missouri

and have catalogued all the caves in Cole county, most in Miller county, and

almost all of them in Calloway county. She was also able to get permission

to explore Indian Burial Cave. She also had an interesting story about

finding a cave called Salamander Cave in Pulaski county, when she and her

boyfriend were scared by some ìbug-eyed guy in a busî that seemed to be

worried about someone finding his meth lab. She also reported that Rubidoux

cave has a new owner who is friendly toward grotto members

  Kirsten Alvey and the Lake of the Ozarks Grotto have an extensive

caving trip planned over March 19th through 27th during which time they will

be cataloguing about 50 caves in Pulaski county. They also have permission

to go into Rollins 1 and 2. If anyone is interested in participating,

Kirsten said to contact her.

  Rita reported that the survey work in Stone County is going well.  

She reported that she went to a cave called Doghouse cave in Stone County

that is a very big, impressive cave (one mile has been mapped). The Carroll

Cave survey work is also going very well, and that thousands of feet of side

passage have recently been mapped. The last trip over the first weekend in

January went very well according to Rita.  She is working on getting access

to a cave called Tanyard Cave.



Motion to adjourn at 8:45PM. The program was post-poned until a later

meeting as the meeting had run long.



Meeting minutes submitted by Ernie Bhend, filling in as secretary. Please

let me know if there are any corrections or omissions. Thanks.