Expeditions
The BCCS runs a number of expeditions throughout the year at the BCCS Homestead. The expeditions are essentially caving project weekends, where BCCS Members and Friends gather to work on their digging, surveying, exploration, or research projects. The expeditions are good opportunities for interested cavers to get involved; just let us know in advance that you are coming so we can get you on a trip.
So please come and join us!
Here are some of our leads and projects for upcoming Expeditions.
Please print and fill out this liability release if you haven't already.
You can check the calendar for Expedition dates.
Please see this important note about WNS. And don't forget to decon your gear!
We also have a tradition of spending the Saturday before Memorial Day each year working maintenance projects around the homestead.
For all expeditions, please contact Tony Canike (Expedition Leader) two weeks prior to the Expedition to ensure there will be a trip for you. (His email address is in the NSS Members Manual.) Expedition Weekends are usually project-focused, and teams are frequently established in advance.
If you just show up, there may not be a trip suited for your desires and abilities.
A few notes about expedition weekends:
1. We will try to find a trip for all properly equipped folks with caving experience. However, please be aware the trip leaders often plan and prepare their trips well in advance, and their trips usually have specific requirements regarding personnel. Letting us know two weeks in advance that you are coming is the best way for us to include you in our expedition planning.
2. Usually most or all of the cave trips on expedition weekends are intermediate or advanced trips. Most expedition weekends do not have beginner trips. Many of the caves in the area are tight, wet, muddy, vertical, and otherwise difficult and challenging. Please understand that, unless you are an experienced caver, there might not be a trip that suits your abilities. If you have any questions, please contact the expedition leader.
3. Most of the trips have a defined goal that has been planned for weeks or months. Our lead lists are long, our projects many, and our weekends are short. We run trips to survey, dig, mine, dye-trace, rig, derig, lead check, ridge-walk, or other activities to solve the mysteries of the caves in the cove. There usually are not any tourist trips on expedition weekends.
4. Please be flexible, obviously everyone can't go on every trip! Trip objectives, destinations, and even the cave being entered frequently change due to the available personnel, equipment, and cave conditions.
5. Be prepared. Bring a spare large cave pack in case you need to haul bolting gear and ropes. Be geared up and physically fit for 8-14 hour trips. Decon your gear.
6. Bring what you'll need for the whole weekend. (Food, water, tent, gas, etc.) The Burnsville area is very rural, with no stores or gas stations nearby. Here is more information about staying at the homestead, our fieldhouse on the Butler Cave property.
7. And be ready to have a great time!
Mike Ficco in Battered Bar Cave. He's got a harness on somewhere.