Vértes László Cave

Vértes László Cave is among the specially protected caves of Hungary. It is located in the Gerecse Landscape Protection Area of the Danube–Ipoly National Park. Its name preserves the memory of Vértes László. When it was discovered it was thought to be the deepest and longest cave in Gerecse, because the data for the deeper and longer Polish Cave were uncertain.

Description

It opens in the outskirts of Vértesszőlős, on the upper section of the Farkas Valley. It is directly next to a busy tourist trail marked with a red stripe, and has an artificial, vertical, axis‑oriented entrance. Its closed and developed entrance is square‑shaped. On tourist maps it is marked with the name Vértes László Cave and a cave symbol. The Szende Cave is located between Vértes László Cave and the Szőlősi Golden Hole.

Vértes László Cave is an inactive water‑draining cave that developed segmentally along a fault line. It formed in Dachstein limestone, but also contacts dolomite. Erosional phenomena are visible in the upper and middle sections, and erosional and corrosional phenomena in the lower section.

The first part, formed in dolomitic Dachstein limestone, is accessible through an artificial shaft. Because of the dolomite layers it is very debris‑filled. Its middle part begins at a depth of 39–40 m, where large chambers were created. The Great Hall, for example, is 18 m high, 8 m long and 4–4.5 m wide. This section contained the most beautiful speleothems, including straw‑shaped stalactites 25–30 cm long.

At the end of the middle part was the formation called Turtle Shell, which is considered the cave's special feature, reachable through the Dripstone-horn. This formation was a floating stalactite crust. In its last part, the Siphon chamber, a siphon was formed, in which sometimes water up to 1.5 m deep also collects. Visiting it requires permission from the Danube–Ipoly National Park Directorate. The cave can be traversed with basic caving equipment.

Its temperature fluctuates greatly. In 1976 and 1977 it alternated between 5.5 °C and 9.6 °C at the end point. Its air is cooled considerably by inflows of cold air and melt‑water from snow, and only after months does the average temperature rise again to about 9 °C. The Gerecse Cave Research and Nature Conservation Association carried out bat observations in Vértes László Cave, during which the members recorded the presence of 7 bat species: little horseshoe bat, greater horseshoe bat, water bat, barbastelle, common pipistrelle, brown long‑eared bat and western barbastelle. Based on detection data and occasionally found fresh droppings, the passage system constitutes a medium‑high species‑rich but low‑individual‑count permanent winter and small‑species‑and‑individual‑count occasional summer bat roost, which locally is species‑rich and has a very high individual count bat breeding site.

It received its name from László Vértes. In 1970 it was first called Vértes László Cave in the literature, in the publications of Rezső Jáki. The cave appears in the literature under the names 11th water sink (Juhász 1978), 11th water sink (Székely 1994), Gerecse 11th water sink (Bertalan 1976), Gerecse 11th water sink (Székely 1994) and Vértes László Cave (Kordos 1977).

Research History

The Tatabánya Miners Cave Research Group began exploring the area's most significant water sink, the 11th water sink, in May 1969, but at that time the group members could not reach the cave passages. Two cave explorers from the group, on 16 May 1970, during rainy weather, diverted the large amount of water flowing down the valley into the water sink. The large amount of water that was absorbed revealed the continuation of the water conduit passage. On 31 May 1970 they succeeded in entering its first short section by digging. The members of the Tatabánya cave research group, on 27 June 1970, made the water sink more passable and explored the cave to a depth of about 60 m.

The cave's first entrants were László Sashegyi, Vendel Mayer, Gábor Szőke and their companions. At the end of the cavity system a clay plug prevented further progress. In that year the cave was surveyed, and using the survey data a longitudinal cross‑section map draft of the cave was prepared. According to the survey the cave is 98.7 m long and 71.8 m deep. The group members carried out morphological, geological and hydrological observations in the cave in 1970. In the study written by Gyula Gyémánt and published in 1971, the Vértes László Cave is listed as a cave 81.5 m deep. At the Cave Day held by the Hungarian Karst and Cave Research Society in 1973 the cave was one of the hiking destinations.

In the manuscript of the *Hungary Cave Gazetteer* completed in 1976 and written by Károly Bertalan it can be read that the Vértes László Cave in Tatabánya, located in the Gerecse Mountains, is the 11th water sink of Gerecse. Its entrance is in Vaskapu, about 1.5 km east‑north‑east of the Újváros sanatorium. The cave, opening at an altitude of 380 m above sea level, is 98.7 m long and 81.5 m deep. It is a water‑sink cave formed along a ENy–DK‑oriented fault line. The part of the manuscript concerning the cave was written based on two publications. The Kőbánya Cave Research and Mountaineering Department carried out regular temperature measurements in it in 1976 and 1977.