texascavers Digest 5 Dec 2008 18:26:29 -0000 Issue 660
Topics (messages 9586 through 9595):
Re: Nasty experiences with bat guano
9586 by: Jim Kennedy
Re: guano question
9587 by: jranzau.gmail.com
9589 by: Geary Schindel
9590 by: Ron Rutherford
9591 by: dirtdoc.comcast.net
9593 by: Don Arburn
9595 by: CaverArch
ICS abstract deadline extended
9588 by: Jim Kennedy
Guanundation
9592 by: BMorgan994.aol.com
NSS dues going up
9594 by: Mixon Bill
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
--- Begin Message ---
I've been through that passage myself a couple of times. It's every bit
as nasty as Viv describes, maybe even worse. But the correct name for
the passage is the Bubble, Bubble, Guano and Trouble Passage. I had to
go back to the write-up in the February 1980 issue of The TEXAS CAVER
for that one! It's not labeled on the cave map.
-- Crash
----- Original Message -----
From: vivb...@att.net
To: TexasCavers Mailing List
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: [TexasCavers] guano question
But the true pinnacle of guano came the time George Veni took us to
Sorcerer's cave here in Texas. It was the Boil-Boil-Guano-and-Trouble
passage.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
So is this a new record for TexasCavers? A discussion that contains
scatological humor, scientific study of guano fall rates, actual caving
stories, new word creation and a reference to George Veni's testicles!
Geary and Locklear may need to be punished for this :-) Maybe a roadtrip
from Houston to Xilitla together in David's Honda Fit...
On Dec 5, 2008 9:46am, mark.al...@l-3com.com wrote:
Sounds like we have some good
candidates for the "Carbide Corner" in some upcoming TEXAS
CAVERs.
Any takers want to submit a bio and apropos
column?
Thanks,
(An always looking for material editor)
Mark
From: vivb...@att.net
[mailto:vivb...@att.net]
Sent: Fri 12/5/2008 9:32 AM
To:
Texascavers Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Texascavers] guano
question
David wrote:
>I am just curious which cave
passages have you experienced your
worst encounter with bat guano.
The
Vampire guano in Japones Cave in Mexico was pretty bad. Really deep red
and
sticky-slimy gooey. And the vampires were in a complete frenzy filling the
passage and stirring up the choking smell. But we only had to walk ankle
deep in
it. It didn't even top my boots and wet my socks.
Then I thought I had
experienced the worst the time I plunged one leg into a 2' diameter
pothole full
of semi-liquid quano in Borneo. Those potholes were everywhere so we
really had
to watch it. But even then, only one leg was completely saturated with the
stuff, and I was able to wash off in the river that night.
But the true
pinnacle of guano came the time George Veni took us to Sorcerer's cave
here in
Texas. It was the Boil-Boil-Guano-and-Trouble passage. This is a full on
lake of
pudding-consistency guano with a frosting of insect casings and dead
bats. It's
actually a series of these lakes. Apparently some of the original
explorers wore
hip waders (a rally good idea), but George swore he could cross the lakes
without getting his balls wet, and it wouldn't be that bad. But then, no
one had been there is some time, and the guano dam on the far side had
grown. It
was at least waist deep for everyone, that is if you could maintain your
perch
on invisible ledges deep in the pools. Once on the far side, it was
decided to
take out the guano dam (something like a rimstone dam, but all pure
guano)to
lower the lakes to their previous levels. I thought the amonia and
methane would
kill us all for a minute there, but eventually the air did clear
somewhat, and
we all made it to our objectives.
At the bottom of the cave is a really
nice stream passage, so we could get nice and clean down there. But the
trouble
was you have to exit the cave through the guano lakes. On my way out of
the
cave, I was the lucky one who actually did fall full on into the
over-my-head
shit. I managed to barely keep my lips above guano, but my hair was
saturated.
It was freezing cold outside and we were in a 100% dry camp, so when I
stumbled
out of the cave in the wee hours, I just washed my hands and face as best
I
could with a nalgene of water and crawled in my sleeping bag.
I was
pleased to learn that the climb I did the next day did not require
traversing
the dreaded
cesspool.
Poo-falls?
Shitslide?
guanoflow?
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--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Joe,
Been there and done that with David - at least almost all the way to
Valles - I think we both paid our dues. As I've told David a couple of
times, I think he has the worst case of sleep apnea of any LIVING human.
I think someone should write up an abstract for the ICS on the need to
create a new word and definition for the physical hazards from guano
while caving. It has the makings of a great - if crappy talk. I
nominate Devra as she coined the term Craptastrophic but then again,
there is lots of room for second authors. Most cavers have a great
sense of humor and would really enjoy it. Seems like there is still
time.
For example, we haven't discussed what would happen if guano caught on
fire while you were in the cave or the possibilities of a dust
explosion. There are a number of hazards associated with guano other
than just plain old histo. Being buried alive in guano or almost drown
like Viv would be pretty nasty way to go. Considering the hazards of
caving in guano, has anyone ever been diagnosed with a bat intestinal
parasite.
G
From: jran...@gmail.com [mailto:jran...@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 10:45 AM
To: Texascavers Mailing List
Subject: Re: RE: [Texascavers] guano question
So is this a new record for TexasCavers? A discussion that contains
scatological humor, scientific study of guano fall rates, actual caving
stories, new word creation and a reference to George Veni's testicles!
Geary and Locklear may need to be punished for this :-) Maybe a roadtrip
from Houston to Xilitla together in David's Honda Fit...
On Dec 5, 2008 9:46am, mark.al...@l-3com.com wrote:
>
>
> Sounds like we have some good
> candidates for the "Carbide Corner" in some upcoming TEXAS
> CAVERs.
>
>
>
> Any takers want to submit a bio and apropos
> column?
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> (An always looking for material editor)
> Mark
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: vivb...@att.net
> [mailto:vivb...@att.net]
> Sent: Fri 12/5/2008 9:32 AM
> To:
> Texascavers Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Texascavers] guano
> question
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> David wrote:
> >I am just curious which cave
> passages have you experienced your
> worst encounter with bat guano.
>
> The
> Vampire guano in Japones Cave in Mexico was pretty bad. Really deep
red and
> sticky-slimy gooey. And the vampires were in a complete frenzy filling
the
> passage and stirring up the choking smell. But we only had to walk
ankle deep in
> it. It didn't even top my boots and wet my socks.
>
> Then I thought I had
> experienced the worst the time I plunged one leg into a 2' diameter
pothole full
> of semi-liquid quano in Borneo. Those potholes were everywhere so we
really had
> to watch it. But even then, only one leg was completely saturated with
the
> stuff, and I was able to wash off in the river that night.
>
> But the true
> pinnacle of guano came the time George Veni took us to Sorcerer's cave
here in
> Texas. It was the Boil-Boil-Guano-and-Trouble passage. This is a full
on lake of
> pudding-consistency guano with a frosting of insect casings and dead
bats. It's
> actually a series of these lakes. Apparently some of the original
explorers wore
> hip waders (a rally good idea), but George swore he could cross the
lakes
> without getting his balls wet, and it wouldn't be that bad. But then,
no
> one had been there is some time, and the guano dam on the far side had
grown. It
> was at least waist deep for everyone, that is if you could maintain
your perch
> on invisible ledges deep in the pools. Once on the far side, it was
decided to
> take out the guano dam (something like a rimstone dam, but all pure
guano)to
> lower the lakes to their previous levels. I thought the amonia and
methane would
> kill us all for a minute there, but eventually the air did clear
somewhat, and
> we all made it to our objectives.
>
> At the bottom of the cave is a really
> nice stream passage, so we could get nice and clean down there. But
the trouble
> was you have to exit the cave through the guano lakes. On my way out
of the
> cave, I was the lucky one who actually did fall full on into the
over-my-head
> shit. I managed to barely keep my lips above guano, but my hair was
saturated.
> It was freezing cold outside and we were in a 100% dry camp, so when I
stumbled
> out of the cave in the wee hours, I just washed my hands and face as
best I
> could with a nalgene of water and crawled in my sleeping bag.
>
> I was
> pleased to learn that the climb I did the next day did not require
traversing
> the dreaded
> cesspool.
>
> Poo-falls?
> Shitslide?
> guanoflow?
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit
> our website: http://texascavers.com
> To
> unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com
> For additional
> commands, e-mail:
> texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I think there have been some nasty fungal infections related to wading
through liquidy bat guano (or bat guanoy water, I don't know where one would
draw the line on terminology).
On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 11:14 AM, Geary Schindel <
gschin...@edwardsaquifer.org> wrote:
>
> For example, we haven't discussed what would happen if guano caught on
> fire while you were in the cave or the possibilities of a dust explosion.
> There are a number of hazards associated with guano other than just plain
> old histo. Being buried alive in guano or almost drown like Viv would be
> pretty nasty way to go. Considering the hazards of caving in guano, has
> anyone ever been diagnosed with a bat intestinal parasite.
>
>
>
> G
>
Ron Rutherford
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
I have manfully refrained (to date) from commenting. However, my inbox has
overflowed as a result of a gigantic crapalanche from Texascavers. I just
looked, and it is up over my ankles at the moment.
DirtDoc
-------------- Original message --------------
From: jran...@gmail.com
So is this a new record for TexasCavers? A discussion that contains
scatological humor, scientific study of guano fall rates, actual caving
stories, new word creation and a reference to George Veni's testicles!
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Fecalanche:
n.
• A fall or slide of a large mass, as of feces or guano, down a
slope.
• A massive or overwhelming amount; a flood: received an avalanche
of crap.
v., -lanched, -lanch·ing, -lanch·es.
v.intr.
To fall or slide in a massive or overwhelming amount of poo.
v.tr.
To overwhelm; inundate in shit.
[French; akin to Provençal lavanca, ravine, perhaps ultimately from
Latin lābī, to slip.]
sporslide
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Guanalogically speaking:
Chiroptocoprolitalanche
Mishugalanche
Oy!
Roger
In a message dated 12/05/08 08:03:46 Central Standard Time,
jlrbi...@sonoratx.net writes:
Both craptastrophe and crapalanche could be describing a slide at a feed lot.
We need a bat-specific term.
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Texas Cavers!
At this point I have no idea of how many of us are presenting papers at
the upcoming ICS next July in Kerrville, but if you are planning to and
haven't submitted an abstract yet, you have a little reprieve! See the
following message from Dave Hubbard. Instructions for abstracts are on
the ICS website at www.ics2009.us. It would be really great if we had a
very large Texas presence at ICS, since it is being held in our
backyard. I know a lot of us are involved with planning, facilities,
field trips, and so on, but let's make sure we also give some
presentations, enter cave maps and photos and so on in the salons, and,
of course, have a huge number of us attend! This is an event of a
lifetime.
-- Crash
------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
Greetings Chairs and Co-chairs,
Hopefully, most of your invited speakers submitted their abstracts by
the 1 December 2008 deadline. Those that have not, still have a chance
to get them in and accepted.
I'm fairly confident that any abstracts submitted the remainder of this
week will be accepted. Any abstracts submitted next week will be logged
in and may be accepted as the reviewers finish with the on-time
submittals. So please communicate with any of your invited speakers that
may not have already submitted their abstract to do so ASAP.
Thanks,
Dave Hubbard, Symposia Chair
Confidentiality Note: This email and any attachment to it are
confidential and protected by law and intended for the use of the
individual(s) or entity named on the email. If the reader of this
message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any
dissemination or distribution of this communication is prohibited. If
you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender
via return email and delete it completely from your email system. If you
have printed a copy of the email, please destroy it immediately. Thank
you
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
Perhaps the most dangerous and ridiculous thing I have ever done was to help
dismantle a fire tower in rural Georgia for the purpose of transporting it
to Belize, where even today many years later it is slowly rising from the
jungle to be reborn as a monkey watching tower. The first of many mishaps was
when we started taking down the little cabin at the top. There was a rotten
ceiling, so I gave it a big poke with my crowbar and the whole thing collapsed
on
top of me releasing an enormous guanundation of bird and batcrap that had
been transformed into pure histo spores. I was completely buried in the dry
choking cloud of crap.
After that things only got worse. It took three trips to the site and
numerous forest fires and injuries, all culminating in an apocalyptic scene
when it
was finally cut down with torches. Then the entire thing was loaded onto a
dinky trailer and driven on bald tires to Miami and put into a shipping
container. In Belize it was somehow pulled to the turnoff into the
nowheresville,
but the moment it left the pavement the wheels broke off so the log skidder
simply dragged it like a sled for seven miles to the river. After that the
pieces were hand carried about a mile back through the jungle, along with all
the
necessary concrete. The tower was reassembled next to a huge strangler fig
where the howler monkeys like to hang out, but just as it was approaching
completion a hurricane blew the tree down on top of the tower and crushed it
into
a twisted mess. The pieces parts were disassembled and carried back out of
the jungle and the beams somehow straightened, then carried back. As of this
date the saga continues.
It is bad enough to be covered in dry guano, but the worst I have ever
experienced was in Borneo where I visited a cave on the top of an extremely
remote
mountain that I read about in an ancient manuscript I found in the crumbling
museum in Kuching. It was just a rumor passed down from headhunter to
headhunter that was finally reported to a British geologist at the end of WWII,
so
I headed up the Baram then up the Akah to the last longhouse. My headhunter
buddies asked the old men in the longhouse if they knew anything but all they
remembered was that the previous inhabitants of an abandoned longhouse
further up river had said it was "somewhere on top of a mountain" at the
headwaters
of the Kitan river, so we got a dugout canoe and that is where we went.
The longhouse was long gone, but the bugs that had driven out the
inhabitants were still there. We walked for miles through swamp forest filled
with
billions of leeches, then went straight up the mountain. It was brutal and I
was
nearly dead by the time we reached a ridge where the going got easier. It was
obvious that there was no limestone anywhere, and thus no caves, but I
decided to head to the top just to say I had climbed the mountain.
We were nearing the top when I smelled the sickening stench of a huge amount
of guano. Suddenly we were surrounded by wildlife. We hadn't seen much
wildlife for many days, yet here were several troops of monkeys, a beautiful
sambar stag, dozens of hornbills (a super good omen!), and even a binturong, my
favorite animal! One of my savage buddies shot at the binturong and I freaked
out and snatched the gun out of his hands, not something I would generally
recommend. You can see a photos of my headhunter buddies on my website
_www.environmentaldesigns.org_ (http://www.environmentaldesigns.org) The
_short nasty
looking guy_ (http://www.environmentaldesigns.org/wilderness.html) was the
one with the gun. Would you snatch a gun out of the hands of someone like
that? For some strange reason he didn't kill me???
The gunshot scared everything for miles around and suddenly the air was
filled with bats. There was an ever increasing roar and the chief's son (the
big
handsome guy) said "there must be a waterfall ahead", but I said no, that is
the sound of a cyclone of bats. And so it was, a veritable tornado of millions
of bats pouring upward out of a pit. I looked downhill and could see a big
black entrance behind an enormous fig tree with a trunk about thirty feet in
diameter that was producing countless tons of fruit. Animals had come from
throughout the forest for the bounty, but the fruit bats had it made in the
shade!
The stench was horrible, and it took a great deal of willpower to enter the
cave. As we did millions of bats panicked and completely filled the air while
puking, pissing, and shitting. In moments we were completely guanundated with
the sticky mix of guano and regurgitated fruit pulp. About that time we
looked down to discover that our feet and legs had sunk into a living mass of
cockroaches, scorpions, centipedes, and beetle larvae (in that order) that came
all the way up to our knees. The headhunters hightailed it out of there, but
I stayed in hopes of finding a python but only found a skin. After wading
around in roaches for a while I came out and took the photo you see on my
website. The boys were catching bats for the worst dinner I have ever eaten,
but
that is another story, one I have already told!
Next week I'm off for two months in Laos where the caves are at least as big
as the ones in Mulu. Wish me luck!
Sleazeweazel
--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message ---
NSS DUES ARE GOING UP JANUARY 1.
membership class dues now/new
regular $36/$40
associate $25/$30
basic $15/$24
family regular $7/$10
family associate $7/ $8
sustaining $108/$120
life $720/$800
All people under 17 must be associate (or family associate) members.
Full-time students may be associate if they wish.
Family members do not receive publications. Basic members receive
almost no publications (it's a rotten deal).
Of the current sustaining dues, $79.20 is credited toward eventual
life membership. You are paying $72 over regular dues, so sustaining
membership amounts to a time-payment plan toward life with a 10%
discount. The corresponding credit for future years, with the new
sustaining dues, is $88. Of special interest just before a dues
increase is that the life membership fee toward which a sustaining
member is paying gets locked in to the life membership fee at the time
he becomes a sustaining member (provided he stays a sustaining
member). This means, for example, that someone who joins or renews now
as a sustaining member will pay off life membership in 8 years--
probably even fewer, as sustaining dues and hence the annual credit
toward life are likely to increase again during that time. Of course,
someone who has credit toward life membership may pay off his balance
and instantly become a life member at any time.
There are also slightly discounted dues for all classes listed above
except life if you pay at once for two or three years--also worth
noting just before a dues increase, since you can get the current rate
for the additional years. There are also some more membership classes
I haven't listed.
If you think this looks messy, you should see the full details in
section I of the NSS bylaws. Some idiot has put the NSS bylaws in a
place on the NSS web site that can be visited only if you're already a
member, though. The two- and three-year old and new rates can be found
in the minutes of the November 2008 Board of Governors meeting. Of
course, those are also inaccessible unless you're already a member....
Why is that stuff secret?
I have NSS membership brochures, with most of the necessary numbers,
at UT Grotto meetings. If your grotto doesn't have them at every
meeting, beat somebody up. You can also join on the Web at caves.org.
I haven't looked to see how well explained the membership rules and
fees are there. -- Bill Mixon
Feel free to forward this important stuff to other lists, etc.
----------------------------------------------
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--- End Message ---
