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Permit: Unknown
Leader: Bill Gee, Lawrence Ireland
email: bgee [at] campercaver.net
13 March 2004
manager: Lawrence Ireland
Assessment: Upstream Thunder
participant1: Lawrence Ireland
participant2: Bill Gee
participant3: Peter Witteried
participant4: Trista Witteried
participant5: Janet Aydt
participant6: Jeff Page
participant7: Randy Bruegger
TimeIn: 11:15am
TimeOut: 10:30 pm
purpose:
Biology - find and mark riffle areas from Thunder Falls to the Round Room.
details:
Bill Gee and Randy Bruegger camped at the schoolhouse Friday night. Saturday
morning everyone else showed up. We rigged the drop and began rappelling in
about 11:15. By noon everyone was in the cave.
The purpose of the trip was to identify and diagram riffles from Thunder Falls
upstream to the Round Room. On later trips the polygon sketches will be used to
count isopod populations using random sampling techniques.
In order to locate the riffles, we wanted to tie into existing survey markers.
Since no survey has been done in the river for about the first 600 feet above
Thunder Falls, we decided to split into two teams. The first team consisted of
Randy Bruegger, Janet Aydt and Jeff Page. Using Randy's instruments, this team
ran a line-plot survey from the closest known survey marker all the way down to
Thunder Falls. No sketch was done, and for the last half of the survey only
forward sights were taken. They also did not flag any of their survey stations.
The second team was Bill Gee, Peter Witteried and Trista Witteried. Lawrence
split his time between the two teams. The second team went to Thunder Falls and
began sketching riffles for later tie-in to the line-plot survey.
The riffle sketches were of the stream banks and stream bed only. There was no
ceiling or wall details. A cursory plot line was laid out to serve as a base for
the sketch. The compass we used for the base lines was a cheap $10 which could
only give us a general idea of directions. Several depth readings were taken at
each riffle.
At each riffle we turned over a few rocks to see how many isopods were there.
The count ranged from zero to about a dozen. We saw no fish anywhere in the
stream.
The quick survey team and the riffle sketch team met in the middle, just below
the dig site, about 4:30pm. We broke for dinner, then about 5:30 got back to
work. The line plot survey team did the last 300 feet to Thunder Falls in record
time while the riffle survey crew went back and got polygon plots of each of the
5 sketched riffles.
The entire crew went up into the T-survey to examine and measure some guano
piles. We found very fresh guano in two locations near the beginning of the
T-survey. There was at least one bat flying around, and we saw two pipestrelles
roosting on the wall.
Back in the river, we split into two teams again. Beginning at the next riffle
upstream from the dig site, we leapfrogged each other. The first team did the
even-numbered riffles while the second team did the odd numbers.
At each riffle we made only the most general polygon sketch. Measurements were
made to the nearest half-foot. We made no compass readings except to identify
generally where north was. We made no sketch of the stream except for the most
general layout of the banks. If a survey marker was near, we marked it on the
sketch. The sketches were not to any scale.
During the trip we noted that the water level in Thunder River was running about
8 inches higher than normal. We found considerable evidence that the stream has
been as much as two feet higher within the last few weeks. There were many
places where foot prints had been washed away.
During the entire trip only one cave fish was seen. It was in Matt Goska's fish
pool. We saw a couple of flying bats and a couple of roosting bats. Isopod
counts at each riffle ranged from zero to about a dozen.
We ended the trip with 20 riffles sketched, getting us about half-way to the UL2
passage. Back at the ladder we began climbing out about 10:00pm. Everyone was
out by 10:30. We had the hole closed up, ropes put away and were heading down
the hill by 11:30pm.
The line-plot survey is not very accurate. Real survey needs to be done in the
river to tie in the riffle sketches. The line-plot crew had trouble with one of
their compasses, did not take any clino angles and did not mark most of their
stations.
Bill Gee