Carroll Cave trip report – 10 January 2026

Entrance time = 9:40am Exit time = 3:15pm

Participants – Bill Gee
Mike Kovacs
Candace Kovacs
Preston Hunter
Jerome Brauner
Robyn Barnes
Jason Jakary
Quentin Brown

Trip report by Bill Gee

Twice each year I lead a trip to service the stream flow data loggers in Carroll Cave. The main task for the trip is to download data from all six of the data loggers. This data is used to prepare the annual report of the Stream Flow Project. For this trip we had five people who have never been in Carroll Cave. The data logger service trip is a good introduction for people new to Carroll Cave.

I arrived at the silo at 7:30am on Saturday. The temperature was middle 30s and the wind was blowing, as usual. It was cold at the top of the hill. There were about 20 head of cattle clustered around the middle gate. I had to shoo them away from the gate so I could drive in, then had to go slow while they got out of the way.

I hung the rope and downloaded data from the rain gauge logger, then sat in my truck for a while to keep warm.

Marty Griffin arrived shortly after 8:00am. He was taking a bit of a gamble that one of the eight people signed up would be a no-show. If everyone did show up, then Marty had some surface tasks he could do. As things turned out, everyone did show up and Marty was a tremendous help with gearing up, getting people on the rope, and then helping them off the rope as we came out. Marty has filed his own trip report.

Almost everyone was there by 9:00am. Preston ran a bit late because he had to stop at Walmart on the way and buy boots. Jason and Quentin brought LaMars doughnuts for everyone. Thanks!

The first person down the shaft was Robyn at about 9:40. Everyone else followed. It was slow going for some reason. Everyone was doing the rappel very slowly. Too slow is better than too fast, but the end result is it took quite a bit longer than usual to get everyone in the cave. I was the last person down at about 10:30.

Jason had a small handheld UV flashlight. He checked out the ceiling of the T-Junction to see if anything would glow. There were some spots that list up in the UV light. We did not try to figure out what it was. My guess is either baceria or algae.

The first task was to place a roll-top bag full of packaged cigarette lighters. We have had a lot of trouble keeping good, working cigarette lighters in the rescue caches throughout the cave. For testing Mike, Candace and I packaged up cigarette lighters in all kinds of containers. We will leave them in the bag at the bottom of the ladder for a year, then see how they survived.

The second task was to replace the battery and memory card in the intrusion detector. I also swapped out the container. The old container was a peanut butter jar. Cheap, but probably not all that effective. The replacement is an outdoor electrical outlet box. It should be a lot more watertight than the peanut butter jar. I will check it on future trips to see how it is holding up.

I showed everyone how the data loggers are downloaded. We got data from both the barometric pressure logger and the stream logger at the ladder. We then went down Carroll Passage to the Rimstone Room. While I downloaded the data logger, everyone else went over to admire the rimstone formations.

We were back at the ladder about 12:20. Everyone had lunch, then we headed to upstream Thunder River to the data logger in UL2. Along the way we stopped to admire formations. We counted a few fish in the river. We stopped at a riffle to look for idopods. There were not very many and they were quite small.

We got to the data logger at 1:40pm. I downloaded the data, then we turned around to head out. We were running behind, so for this trip we did not go on to Convention Hall. On the way back we stopped to view formations in UL2 and in the main passage at the UL2 entrance.

The last stop was Thunder Falls. We had a quick break while going past the ladder. Quentin had to change his helmet light battery. We were at Thunder Falls by 2:20.

Everyone walked out to the lip and then went down the ladder to the base of the waterfall. I downloaded the data logger, which completed that task. Several people took photos posing beside the waterfall, and Jason did some swimming out in the deep pool. He was wearing a full wetsuit, so no problems with getting cold. Indeed, he had been running warm for most of the trip.

We were back at the ladder shortly before 3:00. Everyone geared up and started climbing. The climb out went way faster than the rappel since we could get multiple people on the ladder at the same time. The last person was out of the cave by 3:20. Marty Griffin was at the top helping people clip into the safety tethers.

The weather had cleared a bit but was still cold and windy. Marty had a small fire going in the shelter. The tarp he put up really helped block the wind. Everyone changed clothes. Marty and Jerome had family tasks to attend. The rest of us went to El Caporal in Camdenton for an early dinner.

I will publish analysis of the stream flow data for 2025 in a separate report. It will take a few days to process and graph the data.

Biota data:
One eastern newt found at the ladder.
A few small isopods found in a riffle in Upstream Thunder River. Less than 10, all under 6mm long.
3 fish in Thunder River between ladder and UL2.
17 fish in UL2 between entrance and the stilling well.

Bill Gee