Carl Froslie Is the Grotto's New President

At the grotto meeting on July 22, Carl Froslie took over as president of the Northern Rocky Mountain Grotto.

If you have been on a Bighorn–Horsethief weekend in the last few years, you already know Carl. He drives over from Billings, usually with a carload of whatever the project is short on: trail-marking material for Titan, an extra rope, a vertical kit, an offer of a place to crash for anyone passing through town. He has been caving for eleven years and has been a member of the grotto for ten. He has been on caving expeditions all over the country, including helping continue the exploration of the deepest cave in the United States in 2019, and he knows his way around cave survey and rigging, which is exactly what it takes to find and explore caves nobody knew were there.

He is not new to the board, either. When Dylan Chambers moved to London in 2024, Carl stepped in as secretary to finish out his term.

This spring Carl took on one of the least glamorous and most important jobs on the project: working out how we would get somebody out of Horsethief if they got hurt. In April he led a team through the cave collecting notes and photos, built on what he learned in a small party assisted rescue (SPAR) class, and by Memorial Day weekend he had turned it into version 1.0 of the first rescue pre-plan the cave has ever had. It lives in a binder at camp. According to Carl, the plan also includes a bottle of syrup, and we have decided not to ask. He also makes a habit of keeping fifty feet of rope and a vertical kit on the mountain in case somebody can't make it back up the gypsum wall, which is the kind of thing you never think about until you really need it.

He got straight to work as president, too. One of his first calls was a $500 grotto donation to keep the porta-potties at Armpit clean and running through the week-long Bighorn–Horsethief expedition this August. Leadership, it turns out, starts with the outhouse.

Ian Chechet, who has led the grotto since 2015, is staying on the board as secretary and still runs the website. The rest of the board is Will Boekel, vice-president; Mike McEachern, treasurer; and Jason Forberg, member-at-large. You can meet them all on the officers page.

The grotto is in a bit of a rebuilding phase, so if you want to lead a trip or get a pub night going in your town, now is a great time to tell the officers. Carl would love to hear from you.

Welcome aboard, Carl. He once warned the crew he would be five minutes late to a planning call because he was at the salon getting his hair done, so we have high hopes for the presidential portrait.