Trip report by Dan Lamping
Trip date: 17-19 January 2025
Trip purpose: Survey in Bling Bling in Upper Thunder River, map leads off Lake Room in Lower Thunder River, map a lead off Van Gogh’s Hall in the back of L6 in DL7, remove climbing pole from Lower Thunder River, add cross sections and finish missing plan view sketch in UL2
Trip participants: Friday entry (1/17) and Sunday exit (1/19) to Lower Thunder River camp at Jerry’s Cairn:
DL7 Team:
Joe Sikorski
Dani Lotz
Nathan Curran
Andrew Mayer
Lake Room Team:
Chad McCain
Michael Bradford
Isaac Smith
Jack Rufener
Kohl Mitchell
Saturday Only Teams (1/18):
Upper Thunder River – Bling Bling Team:
Spike Crews
Marissa Schorr
Kevin Mankowski
Kyle Mann
Lower Thunder River – Climbing pole removal Team:
Dan Lamping
Ben Miller
Caleb Mundwiller
Sunday Only (1/19) Team:
Dan Lamping
Ben Miller
Kevin Mankowski
Entry Time: Different times throughout the weekend
Exit Time: Different time throughout the weekend
How far: DL7-L6 – Van Gogh’s Hall
Lake Room
Upper Thunder River – Bling Bling
Upper Thunder River – UL2 – Convention Hall & Conference Hall
Injuries: None
Trash: Yes. A Strap-on. Large. We got the big ones.
Biology: Lamping observed:
Lower Thunder River – 5-7 cave fish
UL2 – 12 cave fish & 1 juvenile salamander (Undetermined what kind it was, though I would be surprised if were anything other than a Grotto, based on previous observations.)
The trip report: A total of 16 cavers converged at Carroll Cave on Martin Luther King Day weekend, which has been an annual trip for the past several years. I arrived at the silo Friday evening (1/17) with concerns throughout the day of high water. In St. Louis we had quite a bit of snow on the ground for the two week period prior to the trip, but that Friday the temperature got warm enough for the big thaw to occur. When I noticed a creek nearby my house with much higher water flow than normal as I drove home from work, I grew concerned that Thunder River could be high and the water temperature exceptionally cold. Fortunately, as we headed west from St. Louis it looked like the region had less snow and not as much snowmelt to contend with. Following the brief warm spell on Friday, where it was nearly pleasant outside Friday evening, the temperature dropped precipitously, getting down into the single digits by Sunday morning.
Two teams camped in Lower Thunder River at Jerry’s Cairn, both entering on Friday (1/17) and exiting Sunday (1/19). One team, led by Chad McCain, entered early afternoon and got out early Sunday morning. Their objective was just upstream of and at the Lake Room to knock out high leads and the muddy side passage up high on the left. Most of their objectives were finished leaving a rather exposed high lead taunting Chad for a return and the continuation of a slimy crawl at the end of Diarrhea Falls. See Chad’s trip report for more details.
Joe Sikorski led the other team to the back of DL7 into the L6 side passage to map a low, wet, muddy passage off Van Gogh’s Hall that he, Bob Lerch and I had left 15 years ago. Their team entered late Friday evening and got out late afternoon on Sunday. I was there on Friday evening to see them off into the cave before heading to a rental cabin where several of us stayed in Stoutland. Dani Lotz was the hero of Sikorski’s trip after she pushed through a low, slimy constriction to confirm the end of the passage. Finishing this lead has, for the most part, knocked out all of the remaining leads in DL7 that Joe and I have felt obligated to return to and finish. The only remaining reasonable lead would be pushing upstream New River at the end of DL7, past the Slimy Wookie. This passage requires drought conditions. In 2015 there was a failed attempt to push the passage when we hauled wetsuits up there and found it sumped. A potential future trip, during the right conditions, could allow access into the upstream passage that Joe Sikorski pushed into in 2012, where he turned around in walking height passage, heading upstream, beneath the valley floor on the surface. But that lead is what we began calling years ago, an L-FAG (Left for Another Generation). Some of the L-FAGs we’ve returned to see to their bitter end, but at present, I think it’s most likely the next generation of cavers, who’ll be pushing that lead. As Joe Sikorski put it, for several of us who spent so much time mapping the far reaches of DL7, it’s the end of an era. Aside from the potential leads down near the Lake Room, the only other remaining viable lead in Lower Thunder is a tight squeeze at the back of DR4, which Kohl Mitchell is currently eyeing up for a future push and a potential high lead downstream of DR2 / DR3 on the right side that either needs a ladder or someone’s whose risk to reward ratio is different from mine.
On Saturday (1/18) Spike Crews led Marissa Schorr, Kevin Mankowski, and Kyle Mann to push the Bling Bling side passage in Upper Thunder River. This team mapped to a definitive end of the passage. and got out late Saturday night.
Meanwhile, Ben Miller, Caleb Mundwiller and I took on the task of removing an ill conceived climbing pole affectionately referred to as ” USS Strap On” which deserves a little back story. This was first introduced into the cave in 2007. As the survey got down close to the Lake Room we observed multiple high leads. At the time several of us were well acquainted with Philip Moss and his stories of using an aluminum climbing pole in Rimstone River Cave to access high leads. On a spur of the moment whim, just before we entered the cave for a four day camp trip to map the Lake Room and in DL7, a last minute purchase was made of threaded galvanized pipe to construct a climbing pole. The rushed plan involved using plastic water jugs to float that materials downstream. The pipes were fixed to the jugs using an assortment of straps, hence the name. While several in the group thought it was a bad idea, we all went along with it, a couple of us optimistically. We decided that the goal for this trip was to get it into the cave and as far downstream as possible. Since we were going monthly at the time we figured we could stash it once we were tired of moving it and pick it back up to move further downstream the next month. So, on a late Friday night, as we made our way to camp, we stashed it on a high mud bank about half of the way to camp at Jerry’s Cairn. Mother nature, however, had other plans in mind and the cave flooded before our next trip, causing Strap On to be wedged up high in the ceiling. It stayed there for years before finally getting washed further downstream a bit. After passing by it multiple times on subsequent mapping trips regret and a conservation minded conscience led us to devise an extraction plan.
We hauled in a battery operated reciprocating saw to cut the pipes into pieces since the entire contraption was bolted together and too heavy to carry out whole. We placed the cut up pipe into large PVC cave packs which were strapped to boogie boards, so that they could be floated in places and easily picked up and carried in others. The plan worked well and got the pipes and remaining plastic jugs up the shaft and hauled out by late Saturday afternoon. Next up will be a trip this summer to haul out left-behind camp gear at Jerry’s Cairn as well as an inflatable raft which was left down at the Lake Room years ago.
On Sunday, (1/19) Ben Miller, Kevin Mankowski, and I went back into the cave to do some survey work in UL2 in the area between Convention Hall and Conference Hall. There was a section of cave that was mapped but was never sketched dating back to 2003 due to multiple teams leap frogging and one team having to head out early before getting their survey entirely sketched, owing to some frustrating interpersonal dynamics. We got that passage sketched, drew a profile of the section of cave between Convention and Conference Halls and added several cross sections.
As we got back to the shaft late Sunday afternoon we noticed that Chad’s team’s gear was gone and that they had exited, but that Joe’s team’s gear was still in cave. We climbed up to see if anything was rigged for hauling camp packs out so that we could help. As Ben Miller was getting ready to climb up the Lower Thunder camp team began to arrive. Unfortunately, due to parking arrangements on the surface Chad’s team could not rig the typical system we use to haul camp packs with vehicles. We decided to use the winch to haul up camp packs, which we’ve usually avoided.
In all, the returns were minimal when it comes to survey footage for the weekend. But, we made a big stride in removing trash from the cave, got several new, younger surveyors familiar with remote sections of the cave, while also coming out with usable data to help as we get closer to making a finished map of Carroll Cave.