Photo Trip

March 27, 2004

Participants Rick Hines (Trip Leader), Marty Griffin, Rosalie Griffin, Dave Jackson, Colby Johnson, Heather Levy, Marsha Walker

Colby and I arrived Friday night after driving through very heavy rains in the Camdenton area. Other arrived Saturday morning. We all met at the schoolhouse at about 930 Saturday morning to familiarize the Sherpas with the slave flash units each would carry.

By 1030 Colby had rigged the drop and we started down the shaft. Soon we were wading up Thunder River against a strong current. The water level was about a foot and a half higher than normal and much more turbid than normal with occasional foam-ations a foot high.

We photographed two of three shower heads, the large rock suspended over the river and then Black Rock “Falls” before moving on up stream to search for our trip destination. On the way to the round room we spotted a grotto salamander, with its pale pink 2.5 inch long body slowly moving down a mud bank.

In addition to the salamander we saw two Ozark cave fish, two flying bats and one stationary bats.

As we moved passed the round room we were all in cave passage we had never been in before. We moved on looking for land marks based on descriptions and directions provided by Eddie Simmons and Terry Sherman. Terry had also emailed me a photo of a formation we were to look for in the center of the passage near the Second Azure Pool. The directions were less than perfect and we poked our heads in some undecorated alcoves before finding the formation in Terry’s photo. Soon we were in a highly decorated area and near the end of the passage on the right we found the Second Azure Pool. We spent over two hours photographing the Pool and near by formations and cave pearls.

Soon after starting out I spotted one of the two cave fish we saw on the trip. I had Colby cup his hand under the fish while I took a few photos before we watched it swim away in the turbid water.

We picked up a few rusty cans that we had found on the way in and placed in conspicuous spots for pickup on the way out. Somehow we missed an old 6V lantern battery that someone else will need to retriever on a future trip.

On the way out the water level had dropped and was now only about a foot higher than normal. Just up stream from Convention Hall we measured the stream velocity at 10 feet in 8 seconds and estimated the cross section of the stream to be 8 square feet. This calculates to be 6.5 million gallons per day and the flow at that point was about half what it was when we were moving upstream a few hours earlier. I would also estimate that the Convention Hall Flow doubled the Thunder River Flow when we were coming in. In other words a very rough guess of the Thunder River Flow when we came in is 25 million gallons per day or 25 times the normal flow. Gee I wish I had listened to Heather when she suggested we go to Thunder Falls.

We stopped to take photos of the large white formations at Convention Hall to try to improve on some of my shots from the January photo trip. I felt the large formation needed a person to add scale.

The final photo stop on the way out was the third shower head that we had skimped on the way in.

I was the last one up the ladder at about 930 PM. By the time I got into dry cloths Colby de-rigged the ropes and had every thing neatly organized in the silo.

Thanks to everyone on the trip for their help with the photography and for making this a very enjoyable and productive trip.

Rick Hines.