Kecske-hegyi Fissure

The Kecske-hegy fissure is a cave located in the Budai Landscape Protection Zone of the Danube–Ipoly National Park, in District II of Budapest.

Description

Approximately 22 m from the summit of Kecske-hegy, in a non‑operational stone quarry situated K–DK from the summit, on the D–DNy side of the quarry, at the foot of the quarry’s rock wall, on the top of a debris deposit, it opens to the left not far from the Lehelős hole. The protected cave is 3.1 m long, 3 m high and has a vertical extent of 3 m. The unsealed horizontal cavity ends narrow and is filled with rubble. Permission is required for entry. The cave can be traversed with basic caving equipment.

It is one of the four caves located on Kecske-hegy; the other three are the Lehelős hole, the Lion cave and the Northern cavity of the Lion rock.

The cave also occurs in literature under the name Kecske-hegyi stone quarry fissure cave (Krekács 1985).

Research history

From the 1943 edition of Barlangvilág it is known that Bertalan Károly and Albert Béla surveyed, during the regular processing of the caves around Buda, 14 small cavities found in the stone quarries of Mátyás-hegy and Kecske-hegy. The cavities of the Óbuda Kecske-hegy quarry are mentioned in the study The caves of the Buda Hills, written by Leél‑Őssy Sándor and published in 1957. The location map in the publication shows the geographical positions of the cavities. The cavities of the Kecske-hegy quarry are also mentioned in the book Budapest natural geography, which appeared in 1959. In 1977 and 1978, Krekács Károly and colleagues broke through the rubble at the bottom of the DNy side of the quarry and found two narrow, small fissures.

In the research final report written by Sándor Kraus and prepared in 1983, a cave is briefly described that Sándor Kraus first observed on January 10, 1968. This cave was located in the stone quarry at the summit of Kecske-hegy, on the Ny side of the quarry. A stalactite flow was visible on the wall of a tectonic fissure that was walkable for 2–3 m and continued in the opposite direction. According to the manuscript, the bottom of the cave later became heavily filled with rock debris. There are several places in the quarry that would be worth opening. Kraus’s 2004 report shows that this cave is not the Kecske-hegy fissure but the Lehelős hole.

Károly Krekács and his team discovered the cave in 1985. Károly Krekács drew the cave’s floor plan sketch, longitudinal section sketch, and a site plan depicting the cave entrance and the quarry on September 10, 1985. The site plan shows the geographical location of the cave. The cave description and the cave map sketches, as well as the site plans, were included in the 1985 report of the Újpalota Sports Association Pannonia Speleoalpin Cave Research Group. At that time the cave was 2.5 m long, 45 cm wide and 3 m high. Károly Krekács reported the cave (Kecske-hegy quarry fissure cave) to the OKTH Budapest Supervision on January 23, 1986. The group completed the exploration of the cave because of the danger of collapse above the cave and the seemingly hopeless further progress.

Juhász Márton, an employee of the National Environment and Nature Conservation Office's Cave Department, compiled in 1987 the plan map, longitudinal section map, and cross‑section map of the Kecske‑hegy fissure (cave cadastral area: 4762). The plan map shows the location of the cross‑section within the cave. According to the 1989 group report of the KPVDSZ Red Meteor Nature‑Friendly Association Student Speleoalpin Group, the cave in 1985 was a horizontal passage 3 m long, 3 m high, 45 cm wide, tapering at its ends. The group report also includes a site plan of the cave’s surroundings. Nyerges Attila prepared the photographic documentation of the cave on 16 September 2006.