Gugger-hegyi Cave

The Gugger-hegyi Cave is a closed and protected cave located on the D side of Látó Hill, in Budapest District II, within the Danube–Ipoly National Park.

Description

On Verecke Street, in front of the part of house number 103 on the street side, at the foot of a stone wall built of breccia, the cave has an artificially created entrance that is vertical, oriented along the axis, and closed with a metal sheet door. The cave, which opens onto private property, can be visited with permission from the national park administration. At most one group may visit per day and a group may consist of up to 4 persons.

In 1994 the cave was called Gugger-hegyi Cave for the first time in the literature. It also occurs in the literature under the name Verecke Cave (Kraus 1994).

Research history

In 1995 Sándor Kraus drew the cave’s floor plan map and longitudinal section map, which present the cave at a scale of 1:100. The map sheet marks the east direction. In a study that saw the light of day in the 1995 Geological Gazette, it is readable that at Rózsadomb Leél-Őssy Szabolcs and Adamkó Péter, based on field surveys and notifications, detected over the past one and a half decades about two dozen previously unknown sites, e.g., the Gugger-hegyi Cave (Verecke Cave). Of these, in 9 cases a cave was also found, such as the Gugger-hegyi Cave. The path of the inflowing warm water is sealed by spherical chambers at the tops of cracks. In many cases such spherical chambers, usually 0.5–3 m in diameter, are found on the ceilings of cave passages, e.g., in the Gugger-hegyi Cave. These spherical chambers are often solitary, e.g., in the case of the Verecke Cave.

In the spring of 1993, a blocked spherical chamber was noticed during the foundation work of the Leél-Őssy Szabolcs family house. Three points were broken through in the Buda marl under the house being built on plot number 103 Verecke Road. They could not get further from one small spherical chamber. At the corner of the future building, they managed to enter a large spring tube consisting of 7 spherical chambers, which was about 1.5×3 m and 3–4 m deep cavity. Branches led further from this. From the third breaking point they easily reached a fissure lying 4 m deep, 8 m long, which was almost 1 m wide and a 2–3 m high corridor. On the ceiling of this, a few spherical chambers were observed, under one of which a favorable breaking point started downwards. The fissure led out of the plot.

Based on an agreement with the Environmental and Regional Development Ministry’s Cave Department, this corridor was further broken through and a new entrance to the cave was opened from the public area. At the same time, the department approved the final sealing of the other two breaking points and the three further cave indications under the house. The 7 caves of the French Mine (except the Látó Hill Cave and the Korallos Cave), the 45th cave of Tourist Road, the Verecke Staircase Cave, the Gugger Hill Cave and the Buda Cave are side branches of the same extensive cave system. Entrance into the presumed cave system may be possible from any of them, which may be connected with the Pál Valley Cave. The study was accompanied by a site map of the caves of Rózsadomb and its surroundings, on which the location of the Gugger Hill Cave is marked.

The 1995–1996 edition of Karst and Cave mentions that in 1993 the Verecke Cave was discovered during the foundation of house number 103 on Verecke Street. Initially the blocked fissure was only indicated as a clay pit, then a largely filled passage was uncovered, which had nice dissolution forms. The latter had no continuation either downwards or sideways, therefore it was backfilled. A similar closure occurred in the investigation of another small niche. Members of Rózsadomb Kinizsi SE together with others uncovered the actual Verecke Cave by breaking through the clay pit. They discovered a fissure 4 m deep and 8 m long, with a dome-shaped niche at the top, which led outward from the plot. The passage is 2–3 m high and almost 1 m wide. By further breaking through, an exit was created to the public area, thus ensuring the possibility of exploratory work.

From 14 May 1998, according to Ministerial Decree 13/1998. (V. 6.) KTM of the Minister of Environment and Regional Development, the Gugger Hill Cave located in the Budai Mountains within the jurisdiction of the Danube–Ipoly National Park Directorate may be visited with the Directorate's permission. From 1 September 2005, according to Ministerial Decree 22/2005. (VIII. 31.) KvVM of the Minister of Environment and Water Management, the Gugger Hill Cave located in the Budai Mountains within the operational area of the Danube–Ipoly National Park Directorate may be visited with the supervisory authority's permission.

In Sándor Kraus's 2009 report it is mentioned that near the cave uncovered on plot 15.892/6, the Verecke stair, the Verecke Cave with an entrance opening onto the street and an easily workable sized passage is situated in a better geological position. About 50 m from the new cave, but about 20 m lower in level, lies the Verecke Cave. According to Klára Groma's 2011 manuscript, the Gugger-hegyi Cave, located on the parcel with cadastral number 15891/3 in the 2nd district of Budapest and with cadastral number 4762-26, is 22 m long, has a vertical extent of 12 m and a depth of 12 m. The cave, which opens onto private land and is closed, can be visited with the permission of the national park administration.