I can't imagine anyone going to those lengths to lower people into a hole without getting some sort of compensation out of it.
How did they get the bucket out? Was it before the top was concreted over? When did whomever concrete that shut? All I saw was Kent's crazy rope swing thing hanging down on the side of the wall but that was in maybe 2002?
IF RF was opened as a show cave, maybe blasting open the upstream river passage from the drainage outside would be cooler than drilling into the top of the Rumble Room. Ive been all the way to the bitter downstream end but I never went upstream. Does it end in a valley collapse?