I met with Rick Hines, Bill Gee, Terry Sherman, Charlie Knight, and Marty Griffin, at the schoolhouse near the back entrance to Carroll Cave. We were to go down the Thunder River passage for a photo trip lead by Rick. Our goal was to make it to DL7, and we were planning on a 10 to 12 hour trip. We all stood around and talked cave, and then made our way over to the silo where Bill Gee rigged a rope. I opted to descend on the new cable system. By 11:00 we were all standing at the bottom of the ladder. We quickly made our way to Thunder Falls, climbed down the rope ladder and stood in the lake below. The rumble of the falls was powerful. We turned and started down stream. I had heard that this part of the cave was very exhausting due to all the water and deep clay. I was prepared for the worst, but I packed very light, carrying 1 flash unit, candy bars, heater meal, batteries, iodine tablets, and a small water bottle. I also wore a 3mm wetsuit and carried an aluminum walking stick.
Rick Hines and Charlie Knight decided to try swimming down stream opposed to walking the clay banks. Rick used a life jacket and Charlie a small swim board. While Terry and Marty followed Rick and Charlie in the stream, I decided that I was going to stay out of the water as much as I could. The mud banks were easy to walk. Thanks to all the cavers that had gone before me, there were paths and foothold to follow. The walking stick also helped out immensely. I was so thankful I had brought it. We all traveled at a good pace through tall, meandering passage. High banks of clay walled the stream.
In a couple hours we reached “Black Rock Riffles”. Here the stream flows over scalloped, black chert. We stopped here, and Rick took some photos. We continued on making our way into the “forever’s”, a long stretch of passage that all kind of looks the same, winding passage, clay, water, repeat. Through this portion of the cave, I was forced to walk in the stream, which actually felt very nice. At one point the ceiling lowered to within a couple of feet from the water, but soon it opened into a room that had a nice flat clay bank on the left. Not only was it “dry”, but there also some very interesting formations there. We had seen very few thus far, so again we stopped to take photos. The formations were being eaten away either by high stream water, or a reverse effect of the drip water. The dissolution had highlighted the inner bands of mineral deposits, making for some really nice photos.
We soon began onward and suddenly the cave really opened up. Ceilings rose, the walls belled out and the floor became large chunks of breakdown. Before us was a huge room, some 30 ft. tall, 100ft. wide and 200ft. long. Large pieces of breakdown lie in the stream. We all scattered with flash units for some photos. I climbed up to the left of the room up to where the breakdown met the ceiling. Splashing down behind me was a small “waterfall” pouring down out of the breakdown pile. I filled my water bottle, changed my batteries, and went back down to the bottom of the room to meet the others. We were going to have to do a little crawling to get around the breakdown pile. I got my kneepads out of my pack and put them on. I had not had to use them thus far. We were at 4 and a half hours underground at this point. The crawl tuned out to be more of a duck walk for 200 feet around the breakdown. On the other side the cave continues to average 20 ft. tall and 25 to 30 ft. wide. On ahead we could hear a low rumble. It was “horseshoe Falls”.
Just like Thunder Falls, Horseshoe Falls is so loud you have to yell to the person next to you. The whole cave seems the rumble from the power of the falls. What an awesome sight! Seeing the falls invigorated me. I wanted to see more! Up ahead the passage was filled with massive breakdown boulders forcing us to climb up over them. The going was slow, due to uneven slick surfaces. The passage around us opened up and we made our way around a corner. In front of us the passage “t’d”. Or so it appeared. What we were actually seeing on the left was “major side passage” (a.k.a DL7). Two house sized boulders sit at the entrance, which is tall and narrow. We had arrived at our destination in 6 hours. While the others prepared to eat Marty Griffin and I went into DL7. Since technically we were breaking a CCC, surveyors go first rule, we couldn’t go far. We stood in a 30 ft. tall passage that meandered to the left in front of us. I climbed down a clay slope and crossed the DL7 stream and went up the other side. On top of the next clay slope I used my high-powered flashlight to see up ahead. What I saw was a very large meandering passage that snaked out of sight. I wanted to go forward but I could not. Marty and I returned to the others and we all ate. After 30 minutes we were ready for the return trip. Before we left, we took some photos of the DL7 entrance area. I had always wondered what that “major side passage” on Helwigs map looked like and now I knew. I couldn’t of been happier.
We all returned without incident and made our way back up the ladder. We had been underground for 11 ½ hours, and were tired, however we all agreed that the stories we had heard about the difficulties of Lower Thunder had been exaggerated. The trip was nowhere near as tough as I had thought it would be.
1 Bat and 2 cavefish were observed
REPORTS
