David, You are missing the forest for the trees. There already IS something out there like you describe, and it works. It's called CaveTex. Look at it this way, you have to have email to be on Facebook. If you have email, and you are a caver, you SHOULD already be on CaveTex. So your problem about people who are not on Facebook is solved! And let's face it, in this modern information age, most of us have too many things we are trying to keep track of already, so why create another? No point in re-inventing the wheel. As for a paper copy, it does have a cost and is not as timely. Like Justin, I, too, put in my stint as TSA-ANL editor. The internet is much more responsive to last-minute announcements. And yes, there are those who argue that some people don't want to be on CaveTex any more because it isn't so much about caving sometimes, instead degenerating to endless discussions about the east Texas cavers picnic, Facebook, and your personal trials and tribulations. There is an easy solution to that. Stop posting those things to CaveTex and just post about caving. That way, more cavers want to be subscribed, and your problem solves itself. To help accomplish that goal, I will now turn this discussion to caving.
Yesterday I met with some TPWD officials at Colorado Bend State Park. We have been working on a plan to re-gate Gorman Cave for a couple of months now. This meeting was to do a final site inspection in the cave, discuss some details about construction, and move forward on the actual gating progress. You all may recall that Gorman Cave is one of the largest maternity colonies for the cave myotis (Myotis velifer) in Texas, and is also currently the only cave officially "closed" (by TPWD Executive Order) in the face of the WNS threat in the entire state. Part of the problem with Gorman Cave historically has been that the current gate was built far into the cave and way past many of the preferred bat roosts, and so does little to protect them. And even though the cave is "closed" and heavily posted, occasional Park visitors and neighbors from the private properties across the Colorado River from the cave still sneak in. TPWD wants to better protect ALL the cave resources, especially the bats, so we are building a new gate just inside the cave where the two entrances meet. It will be a very bat-friendly gate that we use on similar maternity colonies all across the US, a special modification to the Basic Gate called a Window Gate. It will be the first of its kind in Texas. We are planning to do the majority of the work as the 8th National Cave Gating Workshop, where we do the hands-on construction during the day and have informal lectures in the evenings. We'll also need a lot of volunteers to help move work on the trail, move steel and equipment, and set up for the actual construction and workshop. Right now we are proposing that we start the TSA Colorado Bend State Park Project one month earlier in the Fall, starting in September this time, in order to pull together some manpower to make this happen. Camping (tent as well as bunk space indoors) would be at the Conference Center, and volunteers would be fed for the weekend. This is still tentative at this point, awaiting final sign-off for TPWD Headquarters, but I wanted to throw that out to everyone early so that you can pencil it in on your calendars and hopefully plan to be there and help out. As the summer progresses, I will post more updates on both the gating workshop and also the weekend Project work. Cave hard, and write about it often. -- Crash
