Káposztás-kerti No 1 Cave

The Káposztás-kerti 1st cave is one of the caves located in the Aggtelek National Park. 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 is located at a bearing of 258° from Szögliget, 2.2 km east‑northeast of the centre of the settlement, 258° from the Salamandra house, and at a bearing of 289° from Ménes Lake, 772 m away. The cave can be approached through a beautiful gorge valley from the Ménes Valley. The Káposztás-kerti spring is east‑northeast, in a straight line 600 m from where the spring flows into the Ménes Stream. The cave is in a small rock wall on the hillside above the spring, reachable with a little rock climbing, about 7–8 m higher than the spring, at an altitude of 279 m above sea level, in a forest, with a hardly noticeable natural oval entrance 1 m high and 50 cm wide. From a distance the opening can only be guessed, covered by a narrow rock ledge. Some tourist maps mark the cave’s location with a cave symbol and its name.

The entrance is followed by a small chamber, from which a 3 m long slide starts at an acute angle and leads to the DDK. After a bend in the slide, the passage after 3 m leads to a small room, the Bat Room. The passage after that room continues in a narrow siphon, which was widened for a short distance and does not end. Further passages have also been opened, with a total length of about 23 m, but these have not yet been surveyed. Branching, inactive spring cave.

The cave occurs in literature under the names Káposztáskert, I-es cave (Rácz 1978), Káposztás-kert I. sz. cave (Kordos 1978), Káposztás-kerti 1.sz. cave (Vlk 2019), Káposztás-kerti-barlang (Záhorszki 2003), Káposztáskerti-barlang (Balázs 1957), Káposztáskerti cave (Bertalan 1976), Káposztás-kerti-forrásbarlang (Kordos 1984), Káposztáskerti-forrásbarlang (Dénes 2004), Káposztáskerti-forrás cave system (Balázs 1957) and Pihenö-barlang (Vlk 2019). The names Káposztáskerti 1. sz. cave and Pihenő-barlang are variants of the Szilvásvárad Káposztáskerti collapse name.

Research history

In 1957 the Kinizsi Cave Exploration Group investigated it. According to the manuscript about the investigation, the Káposztáskerti spring is difficult to find because the spring is located in dense undergrowth on the north side of the stream bed, under a rocky hillside, at an altitude of 270 metres above sea level. The spring’s water flow on 27 August 1957 was about 300 litres per minute. The spring water temperature was 10.6 °C. The spring’s water flow variation is very large, which the well‑developed, rocky, flood‑prone stream bed above the spring indicates. It is probably connected to the Derenk 1. sz. water intake and therefore the cave system may be 600 metres in a straight line.

The residents of Vidomáj-puszta led the group's researchers, György Szentes, Árpád Csekő, Pál Bártfay and Gábor Frojimovics, to the hidden spring, where, after examining the rock walls above the spring, they found four flood‑eruption sites. First they began to clear the first two, marked A and B on the map, but did not get far because both passages narrowed. Then György Szentes entered the third, marked C on the map, a passage about seven–eight metres above the spring, one metre wide and half a metre high, and without clearing, passed through narrow tunnels to a small chamber, the Bat Chamber. Climbing the wall of the chamber, he reached another narrow passage leading to the Horn, which is 17 metres from the entrance. The passage continued further, but it no longer fit.

The next day Tamás Hazslinszky and Péter Frojimovics continued the research. They cleared the Hajtűkanyar and the two‑metre section in front of it of the large stones, then, climbing the wall of the Bat Chamber, they had to knock down the stones protruding from the ceiling on the section leading to the Horn. Afterwards, in the terminal passage indicated by György Szentes, they advanced four metres forward by removing the clay fill. Further in, the passage became very low and they determined that proceeding further was possible only after a laborious, long but not unpleasant (the fill is completely dry) clearing. After this siphon the passage appears to widen and rise again.

Returning here, Tamás Hazslinszky widened the opening of the Kürtő by removing stones so much that it could be passed through. By cutting away approximately 2.5–3 metres, it entered a fissure that connects in a southwestern direction to a corridor about 8–10 metres long, 1.3 metres high and 1.5 metres wide, whose end is closed by a stone rubble blockage. In the opposite direction, to the northeast, the fissure reaches a height of three–four metres but narrows to 20–30 centimetres. This section, from the Kürtő downwards, was not surveyed due to difficulties of access and lack of time.

The excavation of the fourth, D‑marked breakout point was started simultaneously by Lajos Györödi and later also by György Dénes. By deepening a clayey, very clogged passage, after about four metres a strong draft was felt. Afterwards this passage also became very clogged and, because of lack of time, work had to be stopped at this site as well. The cave survey was carried out by Tamás Hazslinszky and Gábor Frojimovics. The known passages are about 40 metres long, the depth of the cave is unknown. The discovery of a cave system of about one kilometre is probable, relatively simple, and was carried out under healthier conditions than at the Kecskés‑kúti spring cave during a one‑ or two‑week exploration work.