Kis-Strázsa-hegyi dripstone fissurecave

The Kis-Strázsa-hegy dripstone fissure cave is one of the caves located on Kis-Strázsa-hegy in the Pilis Mountains, within the Danube–Ipoly National Park.

Description

Its entrance is located in the wall of a large quarry in the Esztergom-Kertváros district, west of the summit of Kis-Strázsa-hegy. The entrance is clearly visible from the quarry yard, and a small path leads to it.

At the entrance part of the fissure cave surprisingly large, dry, broken dripstones, dripstone flags and dripstone flows can be observed. The fissure was originally covered by a calcium layer 5–8 centimeters thick, behind which in some places a 50‑centimeter‑diameter flow tube had dissolved into the wall. The 18‑meter‑long cave is very narrow, therefore not easy to traverse, but apart from basic caving equipment no additional gear is required for its viewing.

The cave also occurs in literature under the name Kis-Strázsa-hegyi Cseppköves-barlang (Kraus 1997).

Research history

The cave is not mentioned in the 1984 book *Magyarország barlangjai*, nor in the national cave list, and it is also absent from the manuscript on the caves of the Pilis Mountains compiled in 1991. On 25 May 1997 József Regős surveyed the cave, and based on the survey, on 27 May 1997 Sándor Kraus edited the cave’s plan map and cross‑section map, which present the cave at a scale of 1:50.

On 29 May 1997 Kraus Sándor drew a site map showing the geographic locations of the caves of Kis‑Strázsa‑hegy, Középső‑Strázsa‑hegy and Nagy‑Strázsa‑hegy. The map shows the geographic location of the cave marked with the name Cseppköves. In Kraus Sándor’s 1997 report it is stated that the previously unknown Cseppköves cave of Kis‑Strázsa‑hegy is a significant, endangered cave requiring further research, and that its map was produced in 1997. The site map drawn in 1997 was included in the report.