Sunday, April 19, 2009

We awoke Sunday to find a soaked landscape from heavy rains overnight and the rain continued unabated. After a quick breakfast we headed up to the silo, which we had rigged the night before to save time Sunday morning. We quickly suited up and dropped in the hole to change out the charcoal packet near the backdoor entrance. After a quick trip into Camdenton for some Taco Bell we met Cody Stoner at the Montreal Fire Station. Cody had helped us on our previous traces so it worked great since he understood what we were trying to do. The ground was saturated and many creeks which never flow now had water so we discussed with Cody about what his time constraints were and decided to go on down to Traw Hollow and use the tanker truck to help with the trace. Arriving at the creek we found that it was actually flowing over Traw Hollow Road . I added the three pounds of liquid Rhodamin WT to the small stream and then had Cody flood the creek with water from the tanker. The tanker truck flooded the small creek and pushed the dye on downstream. With the first injection done we thanked Cody for coming out and helping us, then headed on over to Homer Jones Jr.’s property. At Homer’s property we found that one of the small drainages near the road that drains into the side arm of Traw Hollow was flowing. So with Homer’s blessing we went up the road and I donned the white Tyvek suit and injected two pounds of fluorescein into the small flowing stream. Wow two injections within twenty minutes. Things appeared to be going well for us.

After the second injection we went to Jim Thiesse’ house to have him show us some of the other karst features on his property. We were hoping to do a dye trace from a distinct spot where Jim had observed water sinking into a discrete hole in the creekbed in the north arm of Barnett Hollow. We headed out onto a very sloppy muddy road with Jim and his daughter. Jim took us to a few sinks prior to the creek but we eventually ended up in the north arm of Barnett. This part of the creek is pretty nice with some rock outcrops along the side but a completely dry creekbed, even with all of the rain. We found the area Jim had talked about and did find a pool of water but no water visibly entering the pool. We decided to go ahead and introduce the Tinopal OB-X into the pool and hope that it makes its way to the cave. With that done Jim took us to another stream sink, this one very close to the ridge that holds DL-7. Maybe next time we can do a trace from here! Jim and his daughter were great hosts for showing us around their property and we definitely hope to work with him in the future. After dropping of the Thiesse’s at their residence we headed back to the school house for a small break and then started the drive back to Kentucky . A very productive weekend for the project; can’t wait to see the results from this series!