A couple more logos.

Linda Heslop did this design a few years ago, the grotto entered it into the 2008 NSS convention t-shirt salon and were awarded first place. Here it is modeled by a headless and legless caver!

This motif was also done several years ago (well, 11 years ago) for our friend J.P. Buchanan who built a nice little observatory on his property.

Caving Art

Linda began illustrating cave scenes not long after becoming involved in the sport. Inspired to depict caving through the eyes of a caver, rather than a camera, she used artistic license to black out areas that would be filled by flash in the photographs. This gives a more realistic view of what a caver can actually see using only a headlamp. Very mindful of safety for Single Rope Technique (SRT), she made sure there were no errors when drawing 'On Rope' scenes like the above pictures. Practically everything she drew related to caving was published in caving related newsletters, magazines and books.

She was recognized as one of the premier artists involved with the sport throughout the worldwide caving community and inspired other talented artists to take up the mantle (pun intended). There's now at least two organizations catering to cave art and illustration, many mediums are used as can be seen at I.S.S.A's site and at SpeleoArts pages. Over the years Linda's schedule has allowed little time for indulging in this work though it's not far from her mind.

I intend to return to this subject occasionally unless there's a public outcry for more, or less....

Long Weekend Camping Trip

We went camping for three nights over the Labour Day long weekend. The weather stayed fine but we'd have liked it to have been hotter. We drove out to Port Renfrew and then into the forest via the logging roads ending up at a place we found earlier this year that catches a reasonable amount of daylight and has a decent view across the valley. A weeks worth of rain had all the normally low flowing creeks (at this time of year) gushing with water. Took the time to walk further along the road to view the flow from a couple of springs that resurge from the limestone/igneous contact about 30m higher up. Impressive! Must try to find a way in when it's drier.

The first time we visited this area, about a month ago, we had three visits from a black bear. We'd set up close to his elderberry patch! The third visit we scared him off with an airhorn and he nonchalantly took a path to his berries before coming through camp. The berries are gone now so no worries of his coming back to dine here this weekend though he's still patrolling the area as evidenced by recent scat along the road. In fact we believe it was him we saw from our vehicle when we decided to move camp to a much higher point above the spur we'd taken. We positioned our chairs to get a good view of the roads in the valley about 450m below us, not much traffic (as per usual). We also stopped for a look at the Grants Grove section of the Gordon River and viewed the gorge from the bridge across it. This is a section of the river that experienced whitewater kayakers sometimes come to paddle. The 3 pics show some of the view.

A great weekend in a remote location. Complete solitude. It feels mighty fine to be away from everything.