Northern Cavity of Oroszlán Rock

The Northern cavity of Lion Rock is a cave located in the Budai Landscape Protection Area of the Danube–Ipoly National Park, in District II of Budapest.

Description

On the rocky, steep side of Goat Hill, 130 metres from the summit, to the northwest, in a forest, it opens in a rock climbing area. It can be reached via the blue‑band marked tourist trail of the National Blue Trail. The name of this section is Glück Frigyes Road. Near the Lion cave, below it, is the naturally formed, horizontally oriented fissure passage, which is 2.4 metres high and 0.9 metres wide. It is difficult to find among the many rock climbing routes.

It formed in Triassic dolomite. It was created along a tectonic fissure by corrosion, with dissolution below the karst water level. This cavity‑forming process is no longer active. It is a simple, upward‑sloping rock shaft. The fissure slab and the silicate‑grain slab are the characteristic slab types. Its horizontal extent is 4 metres. At the entrance there is a branch, after which the cave splits into a short lower part and a long upper part. Borsókő can be observed in it. The cave passage requires basic equipment, and a permit is needed to visit the easily walkable cave.

It is one of four caves located on Goat Hill; the other three are the Goat Hill Gorge, the Lehelő Hole and the Lion Cave.

The cave also occurs in literature under the name Lion Rock East cavity (Egri, Borzsák 2004).

Research history

In the final research report written by Sándor Kraus in 1983, a small cavity on the mountain side above Lion Rock is mentioned, which had been visible up to 2–3 m in length years earlier, but could not be found for a long time afterwards. Kraus’s 2004 report shows that this cave is not the Northern cavity of Lion Rock, but the Lion Cave. According to the cave description prepared by Károly Krekács in 1985, the Northern cavity of Lion Rock is a 1 m long, 2.5 m high and 0.5 m wide gently sloping passage. On the scenic sketch on the map sheet drawn by Károly Krekács in 1985, which presents the Lion Cave, the drawing of the entrance to the Northern cavity of Lion Rock is also shown.

Sarolta Borzsák and Csaba Egri surveyed the Northern cavity of Lion Rock in 2004, and then Sarolta Borzsák, using the survey data, prepared on August 31, 2004 the plan map, longitudinal section map and two cross‑section maps of the Northern cavity of Lion Rock (Budapest District II, cave cadastral area: 4762). On the map sheet, the east direction is marked for the use of the plan map. On the plan map the longitudinal section and the two cross‑sections can be seen in the cave. According to the survey the cave is 5 m long and 2.5 m high. According to the registration sheet made in 2004, the detailed surveyed cave is 4 m long, 2.4 m high and has a vertical extent of 2.4 m.