Trip Leader name:  Bill Gee
Trip date:  20 July 2013
Trip purpose:  Download Carroll River data logger
Areas of Cave visited:  CarrollPassage
Trip participants:  Bill Gee, Jed White, Roger Preston, Jarrett Ellis
Entry Time:  2:45pm
Exit Time:  5:15pm
The trip report:  The main goal of this trip was to download the data logger in Carroll River.  I last downloaded it in January, and I feared it might be getting nearly full.  As soon as the annual Carroll Cave Conservancy meeting was over, I drove out to the silo and rigged Bob Lerch’s rope.  We used Bob’s rope because his survey trip for the same day would not end until well after we were done.  Rather than try to swap ropes, we just used his rope.

I arrived at the silo about 1:30pm.  After rigging the rope and getting mostly dressed, I sat around for a few minutes.  Jarrett, Jed and Roger all arrived about 2:15.  After everyone was dressed, Jarrett went down the shaft first.  Jed and Roger had never been in Carroll Cave before, so I stayed on top to make sure they were able to get on the rope safely.

We were all in the cave shortly after 3:00pm.  I downloaded the barometric pressure and stream logger at the ladder.  We then made our way down to the logger in Carroll River.  It took about 30 minutes to get there.  After downloading the logger, we spent a few minutes admiring formations in the Rimstone room.

On the way back the sole of one of Jed’s boots came almost completely off.  Carroll Cave claims another boot!  He also had trouble with his glasses fogging over, and the batteries in his light ran out.  Jarrett gave Jed a set of batteries, and we otherwise took it slow.  We met Bob Lerch’s team as they were heading down to the Belfrey for some mop-up survey.

With two Carroll Cave newbies in the group, we did the obligatory trip over to Thunder Falls.  The stream level was about normal.  Everyone wanted to see the ladder that leads on to lower Thunder River, so we went over there for a few minutes.

Everyone geared up and climbed out.  The last person was out by 5:15pm.  It was nice to not have to pull the rope out!