Hello to all from Ste. Genevieve. I am a local small business construction contractor. I am also a local firefighter and serve on the county TRT (Tech Rescue Team). I haven't been caving in a few years due to the relocation of my business to here from IL after my marriage and then my two kids came along. So, I am just getting back into caving. I should be experienced as I started when I was fifteen in southern IL just slightly rusty from the past nine years. I'm currently 43. I've got a couple of items to replace in my vertical gear, including rope, then I will be ready once again to start doing vertical again. I am a master diver, commercial diver and cave diver. I just went to the last Meramec Valley grotto meeting last week and just waiting to go caving with them to join them. I have an invitation from the SEMO grotto to join them. I am located in the middle of both groups. And in the middle of cave country. I know that I can't be the only caver here in Ste. Genevieve. I just started a yahoo group yesterday to hopefully get a active group going again here as I have been told by a few locals that there use to be an active group here yrs ago. I have been topo map hunting and ridgewalking and have found a number of caves. The locals have put me onto a couple of these. Another caver told me about two caves real close to me that I had overlooked and gave me a vague area to look, I found them today. One is vertical. And I went back to the area today that I had been looking at and found two more and at least one of them is vertical. I haven't been in any of these other than the large entrance of one of these at the moment due to not having anyone to cave with. My son is currently to young to start (5yrs old). And before I start him out I would prefer someone with experience like myself and someone that I trust to be along.
Anyways that's my intro,
regards from Ste. Genevieve
Norm