Trip date: 2022-01-15
Project manager: Kristen Vogel
Trip purpose: Photography
Areas of Cave visited: Carroll Passage, Turnpike
Trip participants: Kristen Vogel – Leader. Kathy Christensen, Chase Cunningham, Joseph Garten, John Nigro, John Roth, Rita Worden, Shannon Zaloz
Entry Time: 10:30am, Exit Time: 5:30pm
Trip report by Kristen Godfrey: Two people braved the cold weather and camped at the silo Friday night. Four of us stayed at an Airbnb Friday night and arrived at the silo at 8:40am. Two others drove to the silo on Saturday morning. One of those was late due to getting lost, so he was not in the picture taken at the silo. That picture only has seven people in it, when we actually had eight.
We started down that shaft shortly before 10:00am, with the last caver getting in at 10:30. We quickly set off down Carroll passage. This was the first time in Carroll for 2 people, and the first time past the data logger for several, and I was not sure how long it would take to get to the lunch room.
Despite heavy rainfall the night before, the water level in both Carroll and Thunder River looked normal. I pointed out the data logger when we passed it. We went through the water barrier without incident. We were careful to be quiet and look for bats when we passed the guano piles. No bats were seen at the guano piles.
We arrived at the lunch room at 11:40 and took a break there before heading into the turnpike. I saw something in the stream coming out of the turnpike that appeared to be 2 mesh bags with charcoal inside tied to a rock. We figured it was someone’s experiment so we left it alone. At first, I thought it was trash, but it looked like it was tied to the rock and set there on purpose.
One bat was seen in flight shortly after we entered the turnpike. We enjoyed our leisurely stroll through the turnpike. When we got to the far end of it, several people went down the ladder to check out Carroll passage below. We stopped to take a group picture on the way out, and arrived back at the lunch room at 2:00pm.
We headed out, stopping at Thunder Falls to take some pictures, swim, and wash off. The last person was out of the cave at 5:30pm, and we were all headed to dinner by 6:00.
