*******************************************************************************
Permit: Unknown
Leader: Bill Gee
date: 10 July 2004
manager: Lawrence Ireland
Assessment: Upstream Thunder
participant1: Bill Gee
participant2: Lawrence Ireland
participant3: Wade Baker
TimeIn: Time entered cave
TimeOut: Time exited cave
Date: Tuesday July 13, 2004
Time: 08:22 PM
purpose:
Fish count in upper Thunder, critter count in the Round Room, general survey
down Carroll passage
details:
Trip report by Bill Gee
When I arrived at the schoolhouse Friday evening about 6:30, I found a litter of
very small kittens at the gate. At first I thought their mother had been killed
somehow, but later decided they were probably abandoned. Out of six kittens I
saw, one looked dead, two others were near death and three were doing OK. They
were all emaciated and probably dehydrated. They were covered with flies and
were not fighting them off. There was almost nothing I could do for them except
put out a bowl of water.
The bio project cavers met at the schoolhouse about 9:30am on Saturday morning.
We discussed what we wanted to do for quite a while. Eventually we moved up to
the entrance. I rigged the shaft using one of the CCC ropes. When Randy Bruegger
arrived, I asked him to safety-check the rigging. He asked which rope I had
used, adding that one of them had a soft spot in it and he would not go down on
that rope. I did not know which rope had the soft spot. Randy took the other CCC
rope and hand-inspected it. It turned out that the rope he inspected had the
soft spot. Randy cut the rope in two at the soft spot, then put the pieces in
his truck for permanent retirement.
We all got dressed and started down the hole. I was first, arriving in the cave
about 11:15am. Everyone was down by about 11:30am.
We divided into two teams. Team one consisted of Lawrence Ireland, Randy
Bruegger, David Ashley and David Taylor. The second team was myself as leader,
Gary Johnson and Wade Baker. Before leaving, we all agreed to meet at Flat Rock
Falls at 4:00pm for a meal.
The three of us went to upper Thunder River, taking the land trail as far as we
could before getting in the river. Once in the river we did a slow fish count
moving upstream. In the stretch from where we got in the river to the Round Room
we counted a total of 21 fish and one salamander. The salamander was about
halfway from UL2 to Flat Rock Falls in a calm pool right at the river's edge. It
looked to be a fully grown grotto salamander with no gills. I have never seen a
salamander outside the UL2 passage and Convention Hall.
The survey project put three teams in the cave, all of whom worked in upper
Thunder beyond the Round Room. We expected them to pass us very shortly after we
started our fish count, but it was after 1:30 before they went by. We verified
where they would be working and what out time to expect.
We arrived at the Round Room shortly after 2:00pm. Our main objective was a wax
deposit on a shelf where Wade had noticed many bugs on a trip two weeks earlier.
When we started looking at the wax deposit, we quickly discovered many
millipedes, several different kinds of springtails and some ptomophagus beetles.
Wade made notes on what he saw while Gary and I looked around for more live
critters.
The team spent nearly two hours searching the Round Room and the immediate
surrounding area for more biota. On the floor near the center of the room, on a
deposit of something black, we discovered another large population of bugs. This
area also had some fungus growing on it. We flagged it off so future trips will
not trample on it. Numerous bat bones were found along with about a half-dozen
intact bat carcasses. One bat carcass on the side wall of the exit trail that
continues to upstream Thunder was fresh enough to still have an odor to it.
We left the Round Room about 3:45 and headed to Flat Rock Falls. It is a short
10 minute trip, and we arrived a bit early for our 4:00pm rendezvous. Gary
Johnson and I took a set of stream flow measurements at the station just above
Flat Rock Falls. We measured the stream depth at 2.35 feet and the velocity at 4
feet in 18 seconds. Together with the cross-section that Heather Levy and I did
in June, we can calculate the volumetric flow of the stream. The depth was just
about the same as the first time we measured, but the flow was a bit slower.
That corresponds well with the observation of Flat Rock Falls itself. I noticed
several places where water had flowed over in early June but now was not
flowing.
Team one arrived about 10 or 15 minutes later. We all set up and had a hot meal.
There was much discussion about what each team had found. When we were done
eating, we rearranged the teams. Dr. Ashley wanted to see the Round Room and all
the critters we had found. Wade knew where everything was. The team of Wade, Dr.
Ashley and Lawrence went back to the Round Room for more critter counting while
Randy Bruegger, David Taylor, Gary Johnson and myself went to UL2.
Our objective in UL2 was to set a stream flow station. I wanted a station near
the entrance which had a regular cross section and would be easy to measure on
future trips. Several hundred feet in we found a suitable location. I did a
sketch while Randy, David and Gary measured. We got a stream width of about 18
inches and a depth of about 2 inches. The flow velocity was 3 feet in 10
seconds. We marked the area for future measurements, then headed back to the
entrance shaft.
While sketching and measuring, we counted four fish going downstream. In the
past I have seen salamanders at this particular stream crossing, but we saw none
on this trip.
When Heather Levy and I set the first two stream flow stations in early June, we
calculated the stream flow at about 70 cubic feet per second at Flat Rock Falls
and around 103 cubic feet per second just above Thunder Falls. We thought the
difference was provided by the flow from UL2. The measurements we took on this
trip show about 0.5 cubic feet per second flowing in UL2 which is nowhere near
enough flow to account for the difference. There is more water flowing in
somewhere else.
Back at the ladder we noticed someone had pulled out the CCC rope and replaced
it with a brand new one. Randy and David started gearing up for the climb out. I
took Gary Johnson on a quick "newbie" tour. We went a short ways down the
Carroll passage to look at the pool from which Carroll River begins, then we
went over to Thunder Falls.
While the big group was eating, Lawrence commented that he could not find the
stream flow station at Thunder Falls and so did not get any measurements. I
found the station easily enough but did not have the tape measure on me. Two
chances and we blew it ... No data from Thunder Falls on this trip.
Gary and I returned to the ladder just as Randy was finishing his climb out. We
geared up and climbed out, arriving on the surface a few minutes before 8:00pm.
Before we left for the school house, Randy looked over the CCC rope with which I
had first rigged the hole. He and I decided it was time to retire that rope. The
sheath was starting to get fuzzy and it had not been washed in over two years.
Randy threw it in the back of his truck.
Back at the school house we found all the grass had been cut. Ron and Lorely
Lather, and Peddgie and Treasure Heinz had spent the day cleaning up. The place
looked really good! We sat around talking for a couple of hours. About 10:30 we
realized that the other team had not yet returned. We decided to give them until
midnight, then go hunting for them. As it turns out, they got out of the cave an
hour or so after us, but stayed up at the silo talking for almost two more
hours.
Sunday morning Randy Bruegger and I went back up the hill to unrig the hole. The
anchor carabiners and webbing were mine and the new rope was Bob Lerch's. Bob
was still asleep, so we put his rope in my truck to take down the hill.
Greg and Jenny Fry and their youngest daughter stopped by the school house just
as we were returning. We mentioned the kittens to them. They knew someone who
has a nursing mother cat, so they took three surviving kittens to see if they
could get onto the surrogate. Two of the kittens had died and been buried during
the day Saturday. Greg said if the mother cat did not let them nurse, he would
take them to the animal shelter in Camdenton.
As of Wednesday 14 July, Greg reports that the nursing cat rejected the kittens.
One of the three has died. The other two are eating baby food and drinking
water. The Camdenton shelter is completely full and cannot take the kittens.