Philadelphia Grotto of the NSS

03/07/2026

Philly Grotto March 5, 2026 Meeting summary by Steve Warnek and enhanced by Irina.

The meeting started with the presentation on the evening.
Irina Tăbărană gave a thorough and fascinating description of the experiences she had while doing cave exploration in the Grand Canyon. Here are some of the items she talked about:
- finding new caves in the Grand Canyon means a lot of ridgewalking and spotting holes in the limestone wall (commonly called the Red Wall) that further would get checked out.
- the way to reach these caves in the Red Wall is by hiking off trail and using a rope to rappel. Sometimes, the rappels are too long, so come cave are reached from the bottom up.
- water sources are few and hard to find. some established camps for cave exploration are gathering water from drips off the walls into 5gallon buckets of water.
- caving in the Grand Canyon is only possible by collaborating with the National Park. Always have a permit to explore the caves. Not following NP procedure could get you kicked out of NP for a long time.
- Weather in the Grand Canyon is at times challenging. Make sure you take proper decisions when you adventure in the desert. For the Grand Canyon especially, there is 5000ft of elevation loss between most parking lots and the river. That creates between 20 and 30 degree F difference between the top and the bottom, usually beeing hotter as you lose elevation.
- Irina explored Doubble Bopper cave, a system that is over 30mi long and discovered two new caves. Both new caves were no longer than 150ft, but still great discoveries.
- Pictures of Double Bopper were shown during the presentation, that also included crazy Gypsum Formations and mummifided bats and other animals. Samples have been taken from the bats and some research articles were published. (Ancient bat remains illustrate the role of caves as habitat anchors in the temporally dynamic landscape of the Grand Canyon on JSTOR)
- Irina puts down Philly Grotto as her affiliated grotto on every form that is asking for it. Irina was chair of the grotto for one year in 2021.
It was a pleasant home coming and much interest was shown by the audience as seen by numerous questions.

Present at the meeting were: Marcy magness
Brian mayfield
Christian endres
Amos Mincin
Renee Fail
Tomas Hawkins
Nate toriello
Allen Rush
Joseph Adams
Raise Hagerty
Irina tabarana
Renee e
Kari Thomas
Rachel pendragon
Liz
James Conrad
Jeremy Davis
Kira
Jori
Alex
Francois
Sophi
Jeremy Hush
Lucas W
along with myself, Steven W.

Future trips:
- Pancake weekend is 20-22 of March. It's good time in Burnsville Cove. This is a weekend that is mostly focused on digging, either on surface, or underground. There is room to stay at Amos's place in VA (15 min out from Butler cave) or camping on BCCS property is available (the property that Butler Cave entrance is on). Please sign the online waiver for BCCS if you plan to visit Butler Cave or any of the other BCCS preserves. you can find the form here: BCCS Waiver
- MAR - May 1st thru 3rd. Regional caving event with a Pirate theme in central PA. There will be caving trips signups at the registration.
- VAR - 8-10 of May. Regional caving event in Virginia. There will be caving trips signups at the registration. Spring VAR 2026
- NRO - 15-17 of May. Regional caving event in New York. There will be caving trips signups at the registration.
- NSS Convention in Indiana July 6-10. 2026 NSS Convention - National Speleological Society

Grotto calendar can be found on the Philly Grotto website and you can even add it to your phone. This way you'll be up to date with all caving.

03/05/2026

Irina Tăbărană will be presenting about the Grand Canyon expedition for this month!
Join us online or in person

When March 5th
Meet at 7:30 pm
Where:
Woodshop
2810 E Victoria st
Philadelphia Pa 19134

Monthly Meeting
Thursday, March 5th•
7:30 – 9:30 PM
Google Meet joining info
Video call link:

11/22/2025

Dom sent the following about the incident at Carnegie Cave in the 60’s

Came across this video on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl4IOqo5COk&t=512s) that describes the tragedy that occurred in Carnegie Cave, PA, back in the 1960's soon after I-81 was built. When I first started doing beginner trips to Carnegie Cave back in the '80s, I think our trip leader at the time mentioned it, but no details.

Anyway, if you're interested, the URL is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl4IOqo5COk&t=512s
or if this doesn't work, search YouTube for
"Caver's Only Light Breaks 1000 Feet Into Cave"

Listen to Don't Mind: Cruxmont here on YouTube so you're all caught up for Don't Mind: Sealskin Rock on March 25th! ➡️ https://youtu.be/5kYDT4dLnsk?si=j85luz...

08/28/2025

The NSS is in need of a new membership department chair. The current chair has overfilled her plate and wants to step back. It's not a hard job but needs to be a person who keeps tabs on projects, can run Zoom meetings, encourage other members, and have creative ideas would not hurt.

04/06/2025

Philadelphia Grotto 4/3/2025 Meeting Notes:

• Crash Kennedy presented “Administrative Cave Closure and other cave gating reasons and methods.
• Why are cave signs alone are not effective in protecting caves and their contents.
• Caves are gated at cave owners requests to restrict access and protect caves.
• Some gated caves allow access when bats are not hibernating.
• Gated Caves can be available for recreation seasonally by request.
• Caves have a microclimate and improper gating can affect bat flight, and cave formation development as well as cave adapted life.
• Good Cave Gates have wide areas for at flight and are largely built with angle iron (steel L shaped pieces)welded together.
• Cave gating is labor intensive, because of heavy material handling, arc welding, and concrete placement.
• Cave Gates also limit vandalism (graffiti paint spraying, broken formations and overuse.
• Some vertical entrance caves require special copula structures or shuts for bar flight.
• Some Cave Gates have bay window type structures to limit human access and protect bats.
• Notable gated caves include Tumbling Rocks Cave ( to protect endangered species).
• Duran Mine and other mines and caves have been gated primarily to protect bats.
• Shofer Cave in Pennsylvania was mentioned as being gated for alleging bat protection but there were few bats to justify permanent closure.

02/08/2025

Corrected February Philly Grotto Meeting Notes

Philadelphia Grotto Meeting February 6th, 2025

The meeting was held at the Wood Shop on Victoria Street in Philadelphia. Ropes were not hung for vertical practice but vertical gear was discussed and Irina Tabarana gave a presentation on Cave Surveying and Mapping.

A total of 22 attended the meeting. Eight were using Google Meet for access were Irina, Amos, Steve, Eli, Andrew, Robert, Christine, and Jodi and fourteen attended in person, the were Lucas, Elliot, Alex, Jeremy Hush, Jeremy Davis, Michael, Joe, Kira, Elissa, Wendy, Neil, May, Aja and Sophi.

Six of those attending were new to Philly Grotto. Aja, Christian and Elliot are new to caving, welcome. Michael started Calving in Tennessee and has caved in Montana. Lucas talked about only having caved in New Zealand, Joe began caving in the 90’s. Neil, a rock climber, was at the Saturday January 25th, 2025 Peiper Cave trip organized by Jeremy Davis. Welcome all.

Irina explained Cave Surveying techniques, instruments and objectives. She further explained that the Disto X is a popular cave surveying instrument, but chip and instruments are getting harder to acquire. Other more expensive cave surveying instruments mentioned were the BRIC-4 and Attack Pony.

She explained the Survey party generally requires at least three but four also works. One person locates good places to put survey stations ( with good sight lines station to station and takes back sights and announces readings). A second person takes forward sight readings and gives distances up, down, left, and right of station. Readings are entered in a survey book which generally is water resistant and kept in a binder. The third person does the sketching of the passages showing profile and cross sections relative to the stations. Often the plan view of the station lines are drawn and given names of numbers such as A1.

When all the surveying is done a cartographer uses the sketches and data to draw the cave map. Sketches and Cave maps should be drawn to scale and name the surveyors, dates, scale and so on.

After the presentation questions were taken and answered.

The meeting began around 7:30pm and ended around 9pm.

Amos Mincin
PG Secretary

02/07/2025

Philadelphia Grotto Meeting February 6th, 2025

The meeting was held at the Wood Shop on Victoria Street in Philadelphia. Ropes were hung for vertical practice and Irina Tabarana gave a presentation on Cave Surveying and Mapping.

A total of 22 attended the meeting. Eight were using Google Meet for access wereIrina, Amos, Steve, Eli, Andrew, Robert, Christine, and Jodi and fourteen attended in person, the were Lucas, Elliot, Alex, Jeremy Hush, Jeremy Davis, Michael, Joe, Kira, Elissa, Wendy, Neil, May, Asia and Sophi.

Six of those attending were new to Philly Grotto. Asia, Christian and Elliot are new to caving, welcome. Michael started Calvin in Tennessee and has caved in Montana. Joe began caving in the 90’s. Neil, a rock climber, was at the Saturday February 1st 2025 Peiper Cave trip organized by Jeremy Davis. Welcome all.

Irina explained Cave Surveying techniques, instruments and objectives. She further explained that the Disto X is a popular cave surveying instrument, but chip and instruments are getting harder to acquire. Other more expensive cave surveying instruments mentioned were the BRIC-4 and Attack Pony.

She explained the Survey party generally requires at least three but four also works. One person locates good places to put survey stations ( with good sight lines station to station and takes back sights and announces readings). A second person takes forward sight readings and gives distances up, down, left, and right of station. Readings are entered in a survey book which generally is water resistant and kept in a binder. The third person does the sketching of the passages showing profile and cross sections relative to the stations. Often the plan view of the station lines are drawn and given names of numbers such as A1.

When all the surveying is done a cartographer uses the sketches and data to draw the cave map. Sketches and Cave maps should be drawn to scale and name the surveyors, dates, scale and so on.

After the presentation questions were taken and answered.

The meeting began around 7:30pm and ended around 9pm.

Amos Mincin
PG Secretary

01/15/2025

For Gordy

12/04/2024

Pond at PGVFH (freezing cold)!

11/08/2024

November 7th 2024 Philadelphia Grotto Meeting video highlighting a glimpse of of the Kelley Smallwood Presentation.

06/08/2024

Philadelphia Grotto Meeting notes by Steve Warnek with some editing by Amos (the Grotto Secretary and Newsletter Editor).

There was a big crowd (19) at the Philly Grotto meeting at Amos's digs in Media on 6/6/24. That did not include at least six who zoomed in. Though thunder storms were a possibility, the weather was calm and nobody decided to mow their lawn...perfect conditions indeed.

While the program was going on Marcy and a couple of others of us counted 29 bats emerging frpm the louvers of the attic of Amos's uphill neighbor.

Julian Benson gave us a very enthusiastic and well thought out program on the Marshall Farm Project in New York. A group of cavers called the "Rockeaters 2" were looking for caves on a farm to the west of the main caving area (to the west of Albany). A neighboring farmer, Jim Marshall, noticed these cavers and enticed them to start looking for caves on his land. This Project was named the "Marshall Farm Project". The Marshall Farm appears to be a Karst wonderland with a swamp that drains into sinkholes as well as sinkholes sprinkled all about.

This small group of Rockeaters engaged in digging projects on sink holes in this area that was considered very unpromising for 4 years before they started to make some progress in finding cave. The area was considered unpromising due to the fact that there was a thick layer of swiss cheesy like stone (Helderberg Limestone) overlaying the 3 productive layers,
layers that are known to produce chasms and pits and borehole and other productive cave like passages.
The deepest pit entrance was measured at 87’ and only took 4 hours to open up once the cave was surveyed and indicated where to dig. A 83 foot dome meant the surface above was only 4 feet away! Currently this is the main entrance with fixed ladde. The original entrance involved nasty digging in very muddy passage. And many tight crawl ways in the conditions led to the current map production.

Once it became known that it was a productive area, interest increased and large groups started to show up and progress was increased up to 50 times faster and wonderfully accessible and un accessible caves were found.

Now the deepest pit in NY was found on this farm property as well as marvelous fossils and lots of pretties.

Jim and Betty Marshall are the land owners of the cave and their whole family have been in the cave, which is open for exploration when permission is requested.

The takeaway and inspiration here for me Steve Warnek was that one needs to have a dream, a cause, something that catches you on fire and if someone who knows his stuff tells you it is unrealistic, double down on that dream and make it come true in some form.

NY will have Convention next year. The Marshall Farm project is one of many draws that should make this Convention quite alluring.

Best adventuring to all of you!

01/15/2022