Favágó Pothole

The Favágó pothole is one of the caves located in the Aggtelek National Park area. Together with the other caves of the Aggtelek Karst and the Slovak Karst, the cave has been part of the World Heritage since 1995.

Description

It opens on the western part of the Upper Mountain plateau, 2,880 m from the Vecsem‑bükk summit, at 265.5°, in a specially protected area, near the border strip, on the small slope side, near the Nóra‑hole. From the blue‑band marked tourist trail of the National Blue Trail, which on this section is a dirt road, the entrance of the unsealed cave, oriented vertically, is about 100 m to the north. Some tourist maps mark the cave’s location by indicating the cave’s name.

The cave, formed in middle Triassic Wetterstein limestone, is a cave being destroyed by natural influences. It can be divided into two main parts: a surface‑opening, large‑entrance, collapse‑prone fissure shaft and a pothole section that is still largely sealed off from the surface. Most of its stalactites are senile. Stalactite poisoning can be observed in it. Access requires the use of rope‑technical equipment and a permit. A 20‑metre rope, a piton and a carabiner are needed for viewing.

The cave received its name from a woodcutter who fled here from a forest fire. In the literature the cave also appears as Favágó‑cave (Balázs 1957), Favágó cave (Balázs 1957), Favágó‑hole (Kósa 1992), Favágó hole (Kósa 1968–1971), Favágó pot (Kósa 1968–1971), Favágó shaft (Kósa 1968–1971), G‑1 (Kósa 1992), SZ/9 (Kósa 1992) and V‑36 (Kósa 1992). In 1976 the cave was first called Favágó‑pothole in the literature, in the manuscript of Bertalan Károly.

Research history

The Kinizsi Cave Research Group was informed about the existence of the pothole by forester Elemér Szabó, who, among other things, gave the information that one could enter the cave to a depth of about two metres when it rained. In August 1957 the group’s four members, Dénes Balázs, Tibor Bató, Árpád Csekő and Péter Frojimovics, examined it. Using a rope‑grip, they descended to the bottom of the pothole, where they found a 6‑metre‑long chamber, 3 m wide in the middle, and an abandoned water inlet in the chamber. According to them, no one had been in the chamber before them and they measured an air temperature of 7.1 °C at the bottom of the chamber.

Starting from the chamber, further passages were explored, for example they discovered a chamber 7 m long, 2 m wide and about 8 m high. At that time two members of the group, Balázs Dénes and Csekő Árpád surveyed the pit, then made a map of the cave. According to the survey, with vertical descent included, the cave is 45 m long. The survey states that the cave is 16.5 m deep. (That was its actual depth.) According to the survey the descended pit is 21.5 m deep measured from the upper part of the pit.

In 1966 the Red Meteor Cave Exploration Group four members (Kósa Attila, Levandowski M., Patyk S. and Székely Kinga) surveyed the cave, then Kósa Attila compiled, based on the survey, the cave’s two longitudinal section maps and a plan map. The maps made in 1966 appeared in the 1968–1971 class of Karst and Cave Research, but according to the map sheet they were drawn on 20 August 1968. In 1970 and 1971 the group members carried out biological collection with ethylene‑glycol insect traps and a single‑capture method and photographed the fauna, primarily to demonstrate the ecology of the parietal association, as well as performed micro‑climatological measurements and observations in the pit.

The manuscript written by Bertalan Károly, completed in 1976, on its catalogue number 88 mentions that the Favágó cave (Favágó pit) is located in Bódvaszilás, on the Lower‑mountain. The 20 m long and 21.5 m deep cave lies 1 km north of the hunting lodge on the Szabó‑pallag, at an elevation of 485 m a.s.l. A north‑south‑oriented tectonic fissure system is the cave. The part of the manuscript describing the cave was written based on two literary works. According to the speleological field report made on 30 January 1977 and based on the cave’s November 1975 exploration, the mainly vertical pit has a vertical extent of 17 m.

In the 1977 issue of *Karst and Cave* there is a map of Hungary showing the geographical locations of caves in Hungary that have been studied biologically. The map shows the geographical location of the Favágó-zsomboly, which is under biological examination. The English-language version of the article was included in the 1977 special issue of the journal. In this study the map also shows the cave name as Favágó Shaft. In the summer of 1981 members of the MÁFI Optimista Cave‑Exploring Group visited the pit.

The 1984 book *Caves of Hungary* contains a map of Hungary showing the geographical locations of caves in Hungary that have been studied biologically. The map shows the geographical location of the Favágó-zsomboly, which is under biological examination. In the national cave list of the publication the cave located in the Aggtelek Karst appears under the name Favágó Cave with the variant name Favágó-zsomboly. In the list, the location of the cave is shown on a 1:500 000 scale map showing the geographical locations of caves in the Aggtelek Karst and the Bükk Mountains. The location is also shown in the figure published in the 1992 issue of *Karst and Cave* illustrating the many peaks, pits and sinkholes of the Hungarian part of the Lower Mountains. The map sheet that appeared in the 1992 volume of *Karst and Cave* 1968–1971, written by Attila Kósa, includes the location. One of the maps showing the Hungarian side of the Upper Mountain plateau marks its position and, together with several data, lists four literary references concerning the cave.