Carroll Cave Survey Trip Report

Date: 12/6/2003

Area Mapped: UL2

Team 1: Bill Gee, Dan Austin, and Bob Lerch

Team 2: Dan Lamping, Joe Sikorski, and Rita Worden

Team Leader: Bob Lerch

We had a smaller turn out this month as several “regulars” were off on other survey trips. Since we had only two teams, we decided to head back to UL2 to finish up some loose ends and to survey into Convention Hall.

Team 1 tied into UL2-55 and we were into Convention Hall in only 5 shots. Once in Convention Hall, I sketched the floor plan while Dan Austin did the profile and 2 cross sections to thoroughly survey this large dome room. After processing the data, the balcony that overlooks Convention Hall is currently the highest point in UL2, about 60′ above Upper Thunder River. The entire length of Convention Hall is about 120′ with a maximum height of 50′. We spent much of the day mapping in Convention Hall while Team 2 was near by finishing the Brown Sugar passage, which quickly shut down on them (see Sikorski’s report), and it lies directly beneath Highway 7 based on the overlay of the line plot on the Montreal topo. Team 2 then came into Convention Hall and completed a loop from there to Ben Miller’s survey in the “Land b4 Time”. This loop started at UL2-27 and eventually enters Convention Hall at a 10′ ledge over looking the room.  It includes a total of 62 stations and over a 1000′ of passage -the biggest loop so far in UL2.

After about 8 hours of surveying, we took a break for hot food and drinks, and then the two teams leap frogged through passage beyond Convention Hall. From Convention Hall, the passage immediately hits a down climb and re-gains the stream, which apparently runs underneath the breakdown of Convention Hall.  You can hear the waterfall hitting the rocks on the other side of the wall in Convention Hall as it drains into the main stream. The character of the passage is very similar to that before Convention Hall – oh boy, more meandering ledges to sketch. Joe’s team mapped in and around the stream level, while my team headed into another smaller dome room that we named Conference Hall. It is much smaller than Convention Hall, but still a nice room with a 45′ dome and a roughly circular shape of about 40′ in diameter. From Conference Hall, we have 3 leads, and 2 of them are nice while another is a high lead that goes very low (~1′).  The main lead out of Conference Hall follows the stream east, initially, then it bends to the south. The other good lead goes off of the southwest corner of the room under a breakdown bridge. This passage is dry, fairly low (3-4′) phreatic passage that quickly hits a 4-way intersection according to Dan Austin.

In total, Team 1 mapped 356′ and Team 2 mapped 273′ to give us a total of 629′ for the day. Not a big total, but we were all excited at the prospect of multiple going leads. From the stream level beyond Convention Hall, we are about 1200′ east of the UL3 maze. Old rumors persist that these two passages connect, but right now UL2 does not show any signs of heading west to connect to the maze. Overall, UL2 is mostly heading south and the stream will soon be mapped underneath and past Highway 7 heading towards Traw Hollow (see figures below). The stream level is about 40′ below the Hollow, so I am hopeful we might get underneath it. We plan to hit UL2 hard again in January.