Annual Carroll Cave Conservancy Landowner Trip

For the past several years we have taken friends and relatives of Greg and Jenny Fry and other interested locals into Carroll Cave for a short trip to help maintain good landowner relations and to educate the local community about the work of the CCC.  This year 12 CCC members helped 13 friends and relatives of the Fry’s see Carroll Cave for the first time. Visitors included Fry’s son Austyn, one of two nine-year-olds, and Trevor Armstrong, the great grandson of Charlie and Ruth Carroll.  Jenny signed up the visitors and had each one sign our release form in advance.

To simplify scheduling, the trip is now set for the first weekend in October of each year.  This year the group was large enough that we scheduled a trip for Saturday and Sunday.  Six visitors made the trip Oct 2 and seven did the trip on Oct 3.  All the visitors used the steel safety cable and a CCC provided ascender, lanyard, and seat harness to climb the ladder.  Helmets and lights were also provided.  Thanks to Kansas City Area Grotto for the loan of helmets and lights.  Thanks also to Tom Grant, Dave Mead, Eddie Simmons, and Rick Hines for the loan of additional gear.

The following table lists the CCC helpers.

The following table lists the guest.

On Saturday the first guests started down the ladder at 12:42 PM.  Everyone saw Thunder Falls, a little of the Carroll Passage, and Angel Pool Passage.  Two of the guests, Jessica Durham and Ben Gerke, wanted more and went with Bill and Cyle to the Water Barrier to down load data from one of the Carroll River data loggers.  They were the last ones out at 5:25 pm.  The rest of us were out by 4:10 pm.

On Sunday we led seven guests to Thunder Falls and then up Thunder River to the Angel Pool Passage.  The guests started down the ladder at 1:15 PM and we were all out by 4:15 PM.  The two nine year-olds were the first ones up the ladder and had to wake Andy up to get them off the cable!

Looking forward to next year.

Rick Hines