Re: [Texascavers] Climbing, caving, and dog - the missing attachments

[Susan Hardcastle Beaty]

Thanks!

 

From: Texascavers  On Behalf Of Dwight Deal
Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2018 11:03 PM
To: Cave NM ; Cave Texas 

Subject: [Texascavers] Climbing, caving, and dog - the missing attachments

 

Climbing movies, the Gulch, the Tetons, and how Crooked Thumb got his name

The Missing Attachments

 

I have been having trouble with the new and improved Comcast email system.  
Don't get me started ON THAT.

 

Trying again.

 

Dirtdoc

 

 

 

 

 

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Re: [Texascavers] Bill Steele Saw The Truth

[Logan]

Sleazeweazel, Bruce Morgan, Bruce, SW:

Your posts to the Texascavers list have been coming through.

My email inbox holds the following (not counting ones I may have saved 
separately or deleted):

11 from 5/26 to 11/3 2017, sent by Sleazeweazel
2 from 4/20 and 6/6 2018, sent by Bruce Morgan
10 from 3/31 to 7/21, &10/10 2018, sent by Bruce

You choose to be a fiercely independent person and caver, free of the 
restrictions of organized trips, expeditions, grottos, meetings, 
memberships, or anything that infringes on your right to be you.  
Nothing wrong with that. I enjoy reading about your world-wide travels 
and adventures told in a unique and perceptive writing style. I 
definitely do not consider you an "imposter".


The cavers I know are also  individuals in their own right, but choose 
to participate in all of the above that you avoid because they feel they 
can accomplish much more as a team, and develop life-long friendships.  
Nothing wrong with that.  They (we) do not shun you or think ill of you 
because your are not a member of "MY" group. They just haven't shared 
any caving or other friendship-building experiences with you, and that's 
your choice.


You do what's right for you; they (we) do what's right for us.

Sincerely,
Logan McNatt
(MEMBER: NSS, TSS, TSA, TCMA, UTG and many non-caving groups)

On 10/10/2018 12:54 PM, Bruce wrote:


*I have heard it said many times, both to my face and otherwise, that 
“The so called Weazel isn’t a ‘real’ caver”. It is true that I 
generally dislike cold, wet, muddy, dark places, have never surveyed 
an inch, and have an unconquerable terror of heights including 
exposure to anything over 18 inches below where I am standing. I 
prefer not to participate in anything resembling an organized trip, 
much less an official expedition, and I rarely if ever go to grotto 
meetings. In fact, I’m not even a current member of any grotto, 
especially the ones here in Florida that resemble a cross between a 
boy scout troop and a church group.  The fact that during the last 55 
years (I started when I was 15 or so) I have visited many hundreds of 
pits and thousands of caves around the world apparently doesn’t count. 
As in politics, the only thing that counts is whether or not you are a 
member of ‘MY’ group, otherwise you are an imposter or one of ‘them 
the others’. *


**

*SW*

**

*Ps: While in Peru for the last two months I sent several trip reports 
to this list but have no idea if any of them made it through. All I 
have ever gotten was a notification that “This post awaits moderator 
approval” or something to that effect. The lack of echoes makes me 
think I have just been shouting in the dark to no effect. Am I the new 
David? Have my posts gone through or have they been rejected as coming 
from someone who isn’t a ‘real’ caver? *


**

*From:*Texascavers  *On Behalf Of 
*Logan

*Sent:* Tuesday, October 9, 2018 2:47 AM
*To:* texascavers@texascavers.com
*Subject:* Re: [Texascavers] Bill Steele Saw The Truth

Yep, I think many of us have had that experience. Mention caving and 
listen to a long description of their harrowing adventures at 
Enchanted Rock, Garner State Park, or Gorman Cave back when it was 
privately owned and open to everyone. Amazing how many "undiscovered" 
caves there are out there with "miles' of passage that cavers have 
never seen. Sure, there are some, but not the ones these folks describe.


On 10/9/2018 1:11 AM, Carl Kunath wrote:

Bill is exactly right.  It’s an inconvenient truth that you are
allowed to characterize yourself as a caver despite only minimal,
sometimes miniscule, participation in that activity.  Seen from
another viewpoint, those peripheral experiences may have been
powerful enough to last a lifetime.  I have encountered the same
things/memories/claims as Bill.  It IS very much an individual
frame of reference.

===Carl Kunath

carl.kun...@suddenlink.net 



*From:*Bill Steele 

In my 42 years of living in Texas I have run into two people who
said their fathers were cavers and when I later met the fathers it
turned out they went to Bustamante (Grutas del Palmito) once when
in college. It comes down to your point of reference.

Bill Steele

speleoste...@aol.com 







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[Texascavers] Climbing movies, the Gulch, the Tetons, and how Crooked Thumb got his name

[Dwight Deal]

Climbing movies, the Gulch, the Tetons, and how Crooked Thumb got his name

I cannot find Preston's direct email to reply, so forgive me for posting this 
on the remailer.  It is vaguely associated with caves, cavers, and caving, so 
as someone else has famously said  HIT DELETE NOW if it does not immediately 
attract your attention.

 Hi Preston:

Both of those are excellent films,  if a bit obscure.  Climbing is now a 
different sport that it was when I (and Fred Becky) started climbing.  It has 
become so much more athletic!  It's inconceivable to me that a human can make 
the climbs that Alex Honnold and his cohorts manage.  Yet there it is, 
documented on film.  Another film in the works and already shown in limited 
theaters, mostly at festivals, is Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson's 7-year 
effort to climb the 3,000 foot Dawn Wall  (that is also the name of the film).

I think you and I have talked in the past about my climbing days, when I knew 
Fred Beckey, Yvon Chouinard, Bob Kamps, Tom Frost, Wayne Merry and other top 
climbers of that time.  I never actually climbed with them but did camp with 
them and got to know them, mostly in the Tetons and the Black Hills.. I was 
pretty good, but not that good.  I spent two summers as a climbing bum in the 
Tetons, and one in Yosemite as a Ranger-Naturalist.

Mt. Teewinot towered over the climbers camp at the south end of Jenny Lake.  In 
1959 some Nittany Grotto cavers were hiking, climbing and working in the area.  
Pat Purdy and Peg Fowler rescued a puppy from some woman who was drowning an 
unwanted litter in the River Snake.  That rescued puppy, a shepherd-collie 
cross, lived the rest of the summer in the climber's campground. We called her 
"Teewinot".  Pat and Peg took Teewinot back to State College for the fall 
semester.  They had the dog with them on a trip to Kenny Simmons cave (West 
Virginia) the first time she came into heat, and a "big, white, runty-looking 
beagle"  got to her.  The puppies turned out to be good-looking, intelligent 
dogs! Mine grew up to look much like an American Foxhound. Much less white 
(mostly black and brown) but a long-legged, long-back galloper.

I was working in Wyoming that winter and corresponding with Pat.  We had 
planned to go to Alaska the next summer together, and I promised to take one of 
the puppies.  The summer came. Pat married Jan Smith, and they spent the summer 
in Idaho working on his geological PhD thesis outside of Lead Ore. The puppies 
came and Pat and Jan let me know that they were going to deliver "mine" in the 
Tetons on their way back east around Labor Day.  There was another contingent 
of Nittany Grotto folks in Jackson  (Jack Stellmack. Rebne Thompson, and some 
others), so about the time I knew that Pat and Jan were planning on 
materializing with Teewinot and her puppies, we decided we would go around on 
the back side of Tetons and I would take them into Darby Canyon Ice Cave and 
explore the alpine karst nearby. 

I thought that took care of the puppy issue, as they were 6 weeks old and it 
was a 4-mile hike and then across some the bare, sharp, jagged, limestone 
karenfelder to where we were going to camp.  I was  wrong.  One night about 
dark-thirty, Pat, Jan and Teewinot, along with a whole herd of little foot-sore 
puppies, staggered into our camp

Rebne Thompson was a wonderful and welcoming guy and all the puppies crawled 
into his sleeping bag as it got down below freezing that night.  Sometime, in 
the middle of the night, one of the puppies crawled out of the mob scene in 
Rebne's sleeping bag and crawled into my sleeping bag.  What can a guy do? That 
dog grew up with the size and proportions of an American Foxhound. Much less 
white (mostly black and brown) but a long-legged, long-back galloper.

After that digression , I go back to the climbers campground earlier in the 
1960 climbing season.

There is a prominent pinnacle on the north side of Mt. Teewinot, called the 
"Crooked Thumb", which overhangs Cascade Canyon.  Several of us had been 
working on climbing it during the summer.  Yvon Chouinard and Bob Kamps showed 
up and were determined to climb the overhung side.  That's where Yvon took his 
famous zipper fall, but that is another story.  Briefly, the piton cracks are 
not good.  Kamps was belaying Yvon, who reached the limit of his rope - Bob had 
only about 5 feet left in his hands -  and Yvon finally found a place where he 
thought he could set up a hanging belay.  He did, but as he was getting ready 
to have Bob start up, his belay piton(s) pulled out:  PING!

Then piton after piton popped out. PING, PING. PING, PING, PING--

Yvon was 20 feet out as he fell past Bob's belay.  Bob said that as he watched 
Yvon fall past him,  his own  life passed before his eyes.

PING, PNG, PING, PING 

The rock wall turned less then vertical below Kamps, and just as the last piton 
pulled out Yvon hit the rock and took a huge gouge out of his knee.  

Re: [Texascavers] Bill Steele Saw The Truth

[Katherine Arens]

it meant you sent them to the list from your OTHER email . . . not the one 
you’re registered with.  No conspiracy theories, please.
On Oct 10, 2018, at 12:54 PM, Bruce 
mailto:bmorgan...@aol.com>> wrote:

I have heard it said many times, both to my face and otherwise, that “The so 
called Weazel isn’t a ‘real’ caver”. It is true that I generally dislike cold, 
wet, muddy, dark places, have never surveyed an inch, and have an unconquerable 
terror of heights including exposure to anything over 18 inches below where I 
am standing. I prefer not to participate in anything resembling an organized 
trip, much less an official expedition, and I rarely if ever go to grotto 
meetings. In fact, I’m not even a current member of any grotto, especially the 
ones here in Florida that resemble a cross between a boy scout troop and a 
church group.  The fact that during the last 55 years (I started when I was 15 
or so) I have visited many hundreds of pits and thousands of caves around the 
world apparently doesn’t count. As in politics, the only thing that counts is 
whether or not you are a member of ‘MY’ group, otherwise you are an imposter or 
one of ‘them the others’.

SW

Ps: While in Peru for the last two months I sent several trip reports to this 
list but have no idea if any of them made it through. All I have ever gotten 
was a notification that “This post awaits moderator approval” or something to 
that effect. The lack of echoes makes me think I have just been shouting in the 
dark to no effect. Am I the new David? Have my posts gone through or have they 
been rejected as coming from someone who isn’t a ‘real’ caver?

From: Texascavers 
mailto:texascavers-boun...@texascavers.com>>
 On Behalf Of Logan
Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2018 2:47 AM
To: texascavers@texascavers.com
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Bill Steele Saw The Truth

Yep, I think many of us have had that experience. Mention caving and listen to 
a long description of their harrowing adventures at Enchanted Rock, Garner 
State Park, or Gorman Cave back when it was privately owned and open to 
everyone. Amazing how many "undiscovered" caves there are out there with 
"miles' of passage that cavers have never seen. Sure, there are some, but not 
the ones these folks describe.
On 10/9/2018 1:11 AM, Carl Kunath wrote:
Bill is exactly right.  It’s an inconvenient truth that you are allowed to 
characterize yourself as a caver despite only minimal, sometimes miniscule, 
participation in that activity.  Seen from another viewpoint, those peripheral 
experiences may have been powerful enough to last a lifetime.  I have 
encountered the same things/memories/claims as Bill.  It IS very much an 
individual frame of reference.

===Carl Kunath
carl.kun...@suddenlink.net




From: Bill Steele
In my 42 years of living in Texas I have run into two people who said their 
fathers were cavers and when I later met the fathers it turned out they went to 
Bustamante (Grutas del Palmito) once when in college. It comes down to your 
point of reference.

Bill Steele
speleoste...@aol.com





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Re: [Texascavers] Bill Steele Saw The Truth

[Bruce]

I have heard it said many times, both to my face and otherwise, that “The so 
called Weazel isn’t a ‘real’ caver”. It is true that I generally dislike cold, 
wet, muddy, dark places, have never surveyed an inch, and have an unconquerable 
terror of heights including exposure to anything over 18 inches below where I 
am standing. I prefer not to participate in anything resembling an organized 
trip, much less an official expedition, and I rarely if ever go to grotto 
meetings. In fact, I’m not even a current member of any grotto, especially the 
ones here in Florida that resemble a cross between a boy scout troop and a 
church group.  The fact that during the last 55 years (I started when I was 15 
or so) I have visited many hundreds of pits and thousands of caves around the 
world apparently doesn’t count. As in politics, the only thing that counts is 
whether or not you are a member of ‘MY’ group, otherwise you are an imposter or 
one of ‘them the others’. 

 

SW

 

Ps: While in Peru for the last two months I sent several trip reports to this 
list but have no idea if any of them made it through. All I have ever gotten 
was a notification that “This post awaits moderator approval” or something to 
that effect. The lack of echoes makes me think I have just been shouting in the 
dark to no effect. Am I the new David? Have my posts gone through or have they 
been rejected as coming from someone who isn’t a ‘real’ caver? 

 

From: Texascavers  On Behalf Of Logan
Sent: Tuesday, October 9, 2018 2:47 AM
To: texascavers@texascavers.com
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Bill Steele Saw The Truth

 

Yep, I think many of us have had that experience. Mention caving and listen to 
a long description of their harrowing adventures at Enchanted Rock, Garner 
State Park, or Gorman Cave back when it was privately owned and open to 
everyone. Amazing how many "undiscovered" caves there are out there with 
"miles' of passage that cavers have never seen. Sure, there are some, but not 
the ones these folks describe. 

On 10/9/2018 1:11 AM, Carl Kunath wrote:

Bill is exactly right.  It’s an inconvenient truth that you are allowed to 
characterize yourself as a caver despite only minimal, sometimes miniscule, 
participation in that activity.  Seen from another viewpoint, those peripheral 
experiences may have been powerful enough to last a lifetime.  I have 
encountered the same things/memories/claims as Bill.  It IS very much an 
individual frame of reference.

 

===Carl Kunath

carl.kun...@suddenlink.net  

 


  _  


 

 

From: Bill Steele   

In my 42 years of living in Texas I have run into two people who said their 
fathers were cavers and when I later met the fathers it turned out they went to 
Bustamante (Grutas del Palmito) once when in college. It comes down to your 
point of reference.

 

Bill Steele 

speleoste...@aol.com  


 

 

 

 


 

 

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[Texascavers] TCR reminders

[Jim Kennedy]

The 2018 Texas Cavers Reunion starts in one week, at Paradise Canyon Campground 
west of San Antonio. If you haven’t been there before, you should Google it for 
directions. You can start arriving Thursday evening, but registration won’t be 
open until Friday. Please stop by registration as soon as you can. EVERYBODY 
that is on the property needs to sign a waiver for the campground. 

We have a jam-packed slate of events for the weekend, culminating in a 
space-themed parade and banquet. Please wear a costume and join in!  You’ll 
have ample opportunities to support your favorite Texas caving organizations on 
Vendors Row, swim and kayak on the adjacent river, or just chill with your 
friends. Bring your own plates, cups, bowls, and utensils for the banquet, and 
bring cash or checks for registration, shopping, and donations to TCMA for 
their fundraising breakfast on Sunday. There is no phone service or WiFi in the 
campground. More details and last-minute announcements are always posted on the 
TCR Facebook page, so please check that out. See you there!

Jim “Crash” Kennedy
TCR Chief Cat Herder

Mobile email from my iPhone
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