Minutes for Meeting of 04-30-2003

HOWDY RAMBLERS-

    -Ramblers meet every Wednesday at 5pm in the Forbes Bldg. in room 307.
    -Our new meeting place is the rock wall across the street from the east
side of Tyndall Parking Garage. Here is a map of the location 
http://clubs.arizona.edu/~ramblers/wall.html
    -Don't worry if you don't have a car. We carpool from our meeting place.
	
PAST HIKES:

    -Lenny and a visiting friend hiked Ventana Canyon and to Maiden Pools.
They found lots of little frogs/toads and abused them verbally. Eventually
the frogs/toads recovered from the abuse and began croaking back.

    -Steve, Chad, and Mary canyoneered down Solider Canyon this past Sunday.
They began at Prison Camp and followed the canyon until it ran into the 
Catalina Hwy. They did several rappels, only one of which included a dip into the
water. Just like Lenny, they encountered tons of little frogs/toads; however,
unlike Lenny they did not verbally abuse the little creatures.

FUTURE HIKES:

    -Steve's Hike: Hike one of the best canyons in the Catalinas (my opinion)
this Saturday and see desert flowers (a little past their prime), wildlife,
pretty riparian areas, grinding holes and pools of water. We will hike
up to the second dam, about 4 miles in (8 miles total) and not much
elevation gain. Bring 3 liters of water, lunch, and sun protection. Meet
at the Wall next to Tyndall Parking Garage at 8am this Saturday. We will
be back before Hanna's outing to the Tucson Folk Festival, probably between 2 and
4pm.
    
	-Steve's Rope Clinic: I will be giving a rope clinic this Sunday for
those interested in canyoneering in the coming months. We will go to Soldier
Canyon or another local spot with a decent rock face to learn rope skills for rappelling
in canyons such as tying knots, using Prusik cords, tying off while on the
rope, rappelling over knots and ascending the rope. You will need minimum
gear of a harness (webbing or manufactured), 2 carabiners, 25 ft of 5mm Prusik
cord and a descending/belay device. Feel free to email me or call me to talk
about equipment. We can share some gear, but make arrangements ahead of time.
Please consider this if you are interested on coming on any of my trips and
are not already knowledgeable. It will only be for half a day and we will
return to campus by early afternoon. Bring lunch, 2 liters of water, sun
protection and some gas money (as well as your gear). 544-4186

    -Steve's Canyoneering Trip: I'll lead two trips to the Jug next week.
The Jug is a short but beautiful slot canyon with high pink granite walls,
water slides and chutes. There are two places ropes are used to rappel over.
This is more of a swimpack than canyoneering where the entire time will be
spent in water above our calfs and many pools to swim across. Rated
"3CII", with lots of water in it currently. This is a technical canyon
requiring swimming and rope skills, as well as gear for doing these
things.
TRIP ONE: May 6th-7th. Leave Tues afternoon, camp near Salome Canyon,
possibly do some exploration up canyon, return by 5 pm for club
meeting. 
TRIP TWO May 9th-10th. Leave Fri afternoon, camp, return Sat evening.
Websites about the Jug:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~mc/canyons/salome/
http://www.dankat.com/swhikes/salome.htm
http://www.law.asu.edu/homepages/kaye/ppages/canyon/salome-1/jug.htm
Canyoneering Ratings:
http://www.canyoneering.net/ratings.html

    -Hanna is planning on attending the Tucson Folk Festival that will be
held downtown this weekend. All types of folk music will be featured. If
anyone is interested in going on Saturday around 5pm then they should RSVP
to Hanna at haacoy@yahoo.com. If people RSVP then Hanna will be meeting the
group at 5pm at the wall (see info above the past hikes for locale).

    -Loretta's Plans:I am planning to visit Arizona over Memorial Day
weekend and I am anxious to do a 3 day backpack
somewhere cool, preferably to a place I haven't been
before.It would be Fri-Sun or Sat-Mon. If anyone has
anything planned or on the drawing board please let me
know. I'm looking for ideas to either plan a trip, or
go on someone else's. Please email me at
llp2877@yahoo.com.

   -Curvin will be spending the entire summer exploring Alaska. If you would
like to spend any amount of time hiking, camping, and exploring Alaska this
summer, and you can transport yourself to Seward's Folly (the state of Alaska)
please feel free to check out Curvin's website and contact him to set up
some trips. www.redundancydept.com.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:

    -The Ramblers will be voting for a new President at the NEXT regular
meeting. That is this May 6th at 5PM. Due to the uncertainty of my personal
schedule over the summer but lack of potential candidates for other officer
positions, someone needs to replace me now while the other three people will
be voted in or re-elected at the normal time of early Fall. Please think
about lending your services to the Ramblers if you are a UA student with
people, organizational, and motivational skills even if you are not the most
active hiker in the club. Every type of personality has its niche and the
most talented administrators are not always the most active hikers (Hanna
being a rare exception). The only overall requirement is that you enjoy hiking
and genuinely care about furthering the existence of the Ramblers. Please
email me at dcarroll@u.arizona.edu if you are interested in becoming an 
officer.

Voting will be by secret ballot and if I can figure out how to get some Chad's
on there I will. You can dimple them, make them hang, whatever! For those
of you who were hiking across Antarctica during the last US Presidential
election (or appointment??) of our good friend George W. Bush...that was
a joke. So far, only one nomination has been brought to my attention...
Our extremely talented and dedicated Secretary of TWO years,
The infamous Mary Frances Triplett of the Tar Heel State (Old North State)
All candidates will be asked to speak about why they would like to be President
of the Ramblers and possibly answer questions about their goals for improving
the club. We are going to need an official Webmaster again by Fall. These
positions can be filled by anyone basically. We also could use some help
if anyone could be the new Gear Warden. Technically we don't have one now.
If anyone is interested in assisting with things like club advertisement
for example, we could make a new position for that. If you want to be more
involved just let someone know! That is all that I have for now.
Your soon to be former president,
Dan Carroll :-)

    -If you need the list of Ramblers gear or wants to borrow some, please
contact myself or Dan.
      maryft@email.arizona.edu and dcarroll@u.arizona.edu