Carroll Cave trip report for 4 August 2024
Participants – Bill Gee (trip leader)
Shane McCurdy
Martin Carmichael
Sean Zimmerman
Nevin Dubinski
Josh White
Mike Kovacs
Time in = 9:15am, time out = 1:30pm
This trip is a “makeup” from the trip on July 13. The July trip was partly rained out. We were not able to get to two of the data loggers in the cave because of high water levels.
Martin Carmichael arrived first at the cave, around 8:00am. Bill Gee and Josh White arrived about ten minutes later. Everyone else arrived over the next 45 minutes. Sean had an adventure with bad directions on his GPS. It routed him in the back way along Carroll Cave Road.
The first person down the shaft was Martin. Everyone else followed. We were all in the cave by 9:45am. I replaced the cave intrusion detector. It had a dead battery at the July trip. I took it home, recharged the battery and checked the data. Today it went back in place.
The trip to UL2 went a bit slower than usual. We were counting fish and showing off the sights to the two people new to Carroll Cave. We entered UL2 about 10:30. I downloaded data from the data logger, then we continued on to Convention Hall.
Rather than a full lunch, we had a snack break in Convention Hall. Everyone except Mike and me went up to the overlook. We left Convention Hall at 11:30am. On the way out we stopped to view formations at the duck-under and also at the UL2 entrance.
We stayed in the river all the way to Thunder Falls. The river level was normal. Everyone except Mike went down the ladder to the lower level. I downloaded the data logger while the others went on to the waterfall.
We came back through the shortcut. Back at the ladder shortly after 1:00pm. Everyone geared up and climbed out. We were out of the cave by 1:30pm. On the way up the ladder Martin cut loose the old, dead rope light. We removed it from the cave and took it home for disposal.
Nevin and Mike took photographs throughout the trip.
After changing clothes, everyone except Nevin went to Camdenton for Mexican. It was either a late lunch or early dinner, depending on how you count.
Biology report: We counted 18 fish in Thunder River between the ladder and the UL2 entrance. In UL2 from the entrance to Convention Hall we counted 24 fish and 4 grotto salamanders. We saw no critters at the base of the ladder.
General site report – Marty Griffin was at the site a few days ago to mow and run the string trimmer. He only got about half of the grassy area mowed. We did not take the time to run the mower, mainly because it was too hot by the time we got out of the cave. We were all looking forward to Mexican!
Bill Gee
