Kubach crystal cave

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Kubach crystal cave

Crystals on a wall

Crystals on a wall
Location: Taunus , Germany
Height : 235  m above sea level NN
Geographic
location: 		50 ° 28 '5 "  N , 8 ° 18' 9"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 28 '5 "  N , 8 ° 18' 9"  E
Kubacher crystal cave (Hesse)
Kubach crystal cave
Discovery: 1974
Show cave since: 1981
Lighting: electric (since 1981)
Overall length: 170 meters
Level difference: 75 meters
Length of the show
cave area: 		310 meters
(with entrance tunnel)
Average annual number of visitors: 34,400 (2007-2011)
Current visitors: 29,412 (2011)
Particularities: Crystal-studded cave passage
Website: www.kubacherkristallhoehle.de

The Kubacher crystal cave in Kubach near Weilburg , in the eastern Hintertaunus in Hesse , is a cleft cave in the Upper Devonian Kalk. Large parts of the walls are covered with countless calcite crystals and pearl sinter . The crystal decorations on the walls are unique in Germany. With a length of about 170, a width of up to 26 meters and a height of up to 30 meters, the cave is the largest natural underground single cavity that can be visited in Germany. Its origin cannot yet be fully explained with today's theories of cave formation.

The Kubach crystal cave was discovered in an unusual way: in 1974 the cave association Kubach e. V. Search bores with the help of a camera to find a stalactite cave that was visited in 1881 during the phosphorite mining, the exact location of which was no longer known. In the spring and autumn of 1974, two previously unknown caves were found, including the crystal cave. In the following years this cave was developed, expanded and opened on March 1st, 1981. Since then it has been used for tourism as a show cave with regular tours. The annual number of visitors is around 34,400 .

The Kubacher Kristallhöhle is a geo-information center of the National Geopark Westerwald-Lahn-Taunus .

history

Stalactite cave

In the 19th century, phosphorite was mined in the Kubach district, in the direction of Freienfels , which was needed in the fertilizer industry and for metal refinement. The miners from Kubach and the surrounding area dug shafts up to 70 meters deep in the lime that surrounded the phosphorite nests and cut the phosphorite out of cracks and crevices. In 1881 they discovered a cave that was reported to be a magnificent stalactite cave . Mining was stopped at the end of the 19th century because it was cheaper to import the phosphorite from abroad, where it could be mined for days . The mining company had the many shafts, which were mainly in the forest on the right of the road from Kubach to Freienfels, filled up again. The shaft to the stalactite cave was also filled. On September 15, 1906, the Weilburger Tageblatt wrote :

“There is an unrecovered treasure in our district. A magnificent stalactite cave was cut about 25 years ago at the then phosphorite factory and was driven on by some courageous, partly still living men. From the main hall, 63 m long and 38 m wide - the height could not be determined - further corridors branched off, which one could drive with wagons, but they were not pursued further, since the union, which let the phosphorite ditch, of the had to pay rent for used fields, the shaft that had led to the cave was closed again as soon as possible. From a nearby, undeveloped slope, the cave could be opened up through a short tunnel without great expense, thus creating a new and rare attraction for tourists and researchers in our area. We would like to draw the attention of interested parties, especially the tourist and tourist associations in our area. "

- Weilburger Tageblatt , September 15, 1906.

In a report by the royal mountain council Polster, which he wrote in 1907 on the basis of information from Steiger Schmidt from Kubach, the length of the cave is given as 64, the width as 36.5 and the height as 30 meters. Neither in the article in the Weilburger Tageblatt nor in the expert opinion is the exact location of the cave mentioned, nor from which die it was reached. Only a sketch in the report shows that the cave was reached via a 22-meter-deep shaft through clay and scarf stone . The appraisal estimated the cost of making the cave accessible again by sinking a 40-meter-deep shaft and a transverse drive of 900  marks .

At the request of the district committee of the Oberlahn district, the municipality of Weilburg made 30 marks available. However, the county had expected more money from the city as it would have become a direct beneficiary of the cave. Since no further financial resources could be raised, the project failed. The chairman of the Frankfurt Speleological Association , Karl Becker, became aware of the stalactite cave and wrote numerous letters to find out more about it. In 1925 he reported in a book and in 1929 in a supplement to the Wiesbadener Tageblatt about the Cubacher cave . In the course of time, however, the cave was more and more forgotten, above all, nobody knew where it was exactly. In 1955 and 1966 the Oberlahnkreis and the research group Karst and Caves in Hesse made efforts to find them again.

Research

Sinter deposits and pearl sinter

During renovation work in the house of the high school teacher Karl-Heinz Schröder, who moved from Freiberg to Kubach in 1967 , the master painter Hermann Schmidt reported in 1970 that there was a large stalactite cave not far away between Kubach and Freienfels. The exact location is not known. The master painter said, “The cave was discovered long ago while mining. Unfortunately, the entrance has been buried and nobody knows where it is. But as a boy I still saw that people from Kubach had stalactites from this cave lying on the Vertiko in their living room. ”The Schröder family's interest was so much aroused that they focused on finding the cave again and Karl-Heinz Schröder carried out extensive research at the Weilburger Bergamt, in the archives of the district office, in the library of the Weilburg grammar school, in the Weilburg district court and cadastral office and in the Wiesbaden main state archive. He also studied numerous books and contacted various people.

During his research he discovered, among other things, a report in the Weilburger Tageblatt from 1906 and the report from 1907. In the Small Encyclopedia Nature (published in 1964 in the GDR ) he found the article Tropfsteinhöhle near Weinbach, Cubach and Weilburg in the section caves in West Germany in the mass limestone of the Devonian , although the well-known Atta cave was not even mentioned there. From 1922, in a representation of the phosphorite deposits in Nassau, there was a note about the caves in the Kubach district, by the geologist W. Kegel , who was at the Prussian Geological Institute in Berlin . There, too, reports are made of the size and beauty of the cave, but again there is no concrete location. Further evidence of the existence of the cave are four stalactites that were found after a fire in the early 1970s together with a note about the origin, a stalactite cave between Freienfels and Kubach, in a box in the attic of the local history and mining museum in Weilburg. The stalactites that are now on display there are a 40 centimeter long stalactite with a diameter of ten centimeters, a stalactite covered with wart sinter, a broken stalactite and a stalagmite .

Schröder made contact with Hessian cave researchers and scientists from all over Germany. They tried to locate the cave with various methods. He interviewed older Kubach citizens, especially the descendants of former miners, most of whom were surprised that there should be a stalactite cave there. Schröder met with great interest in his research; several people were found who helped with the search. Together with Hessian cave researchers, they tried to locate old mine shafts. A backfilled shaft, which they hoped was only covered, was dredged by the Schäfer company from Rohnstadt free of charge. At a depth of five meters, as far as the excavator shovel reached, there was only clay and small pieces of spruce mesh, which could have indicated a cover. The Hessian cave explorers and some Kubach residents finally continued digging themselves and using a winch to lift the clay in buckets. However, there was no cavity below. They finally gave up and backfilled the pit. In areas where caves were suspected, investigations of the subsurface were carried out using various measuring methods. This resulted in a search for an unknown cave that is unique in Germany. The physicist Peter Henne from Königswinter from the Institute for Data Processing and Computer Technology in Birlinghoven carried out seismic probes with a geosonar he developed , in which disturbances in the wave images suggest cavities. But because of the thick clay and limestone cover, his efforts were in vain.

The mining geologist Rudolf Börner worked on a geoelectrical basis with a geoscope he developed. This device, which is mainly used in deposit research, scans the subsurface with electrical currents or waves. The measurement results make statements about the conductivity of the subsurface, with the different resistances indicating the type of subsurface. His investigations indicated that caves may exist in the measured area. However, the values ​​could also have resulted from faults in earlier mountain folds. Walter Lauterberg, the then head of aerial photography at the Hessian Ministry of Economics and Technology , had stereoscopic aerial photo examinations carried out, such as those used when exploring the lunar surface. But since the cave to be searched for was obviously too deep, nothing corresponding could be seen in the aerial photos. The engineer Peter Lienhardt from Prakla-Seismos in Hanover unsuccessfully used a gravimeter with which knowledge about the mass distribution in the earth's crust can be obtained. Also infrared images were unsuccessful. In the later years there were repeated investigations according to different methods, but all could only give certain indications.

Pearl sinter on the wall

The various investigation methods yielded various clues that indicated larger cavities under the earth. The only way to check this was to drill in the places concerned. However, this would have cost a lot of money that could not be raised. Students of Karl-Heinz Schröder collected small amounts of money with donation lists. In handicraft lessons, they used linocut to print cards with cave motifs, which they sold. This raised a total of 1,500 German marks. On January 14, 1973, 13 like-minded people founded the community of interests for the exploration and development of the Kubach stalactite caves , whose chairman was Karl-Heinz Schröder in order to receive subsidies from the public for the planned search bores. They received a donation of 2,200 German marks from the district committee and 200 German marks from the community of Weinbach . Despite a request, the city of Weilburg did not approve a grant. The association had only limited financial resources. But he managed to find four companies that carried out drilling for almost nothing. They were Atlas Copco from Essen , Nassovia from Weilburg, Hermann Schäfer from Rohnstadt and the stainless steel company Böhler from Vienna and Düsseldorf . Atlas-Copco carried out the first wells in February 1973. However, they were unsuccessful.

discovery

The drilling of the Nassovia company in April 1973 was very complex because, unlike the other companies, it was drilling with water and not with air. For this purpose, a 10,000 liter steel tank, which was almost as long as a railroad car, had to be transported from the company's headquarters in Weilburg to the drilling site and continuously filled with water during the drilling. This was done with the help of farmers who brought the water from the Kubach extinguishing water pond to the drilling site with their tractors. In July 1973 a first success was finally achieved. The Schäfer company used a small drill rig that was otherwise used in the quarry to drill a cavity that was later called the chapel . This cave was reached twice at a depth of 13 meters on both sides of the road from Kubach to Freienfels. The drill pipe fell about four meters into the cavity. The member of the interest group, Siegfried Grün, photographed the cavity with a Minox camera through a search hole with a diameter of 86 millimeters . It was a smaller cave with boulders on the floor, so not the large stalactite cave we were looking for.

Borehole camera used to discover the cave

In September 1973, the interest group received a large drilling rig for a few days from the Böhler company in Vienna, Düsseldorf branch. With this they carried out several drillings in the vicinity of the discovered cavity, which however remained unsuccessful. A little further south, on the right of the road to Freienfels, the last drilling was carried out, as the agreed drilling time was coming to an end. On September 25, 1973, at a depth of 39 meters, they encountered a large cavity, which was later called the Kubach Crystal Cave . As the drill pipe fell seven meters after the breakthrough, it was recognized that the cave had this height there. She was also photographed through the borehole. The flash was only ten feet away. There was a beautiful group of stalactites and a wide corridor that led into the depths. On November 28, 1973, the community of interests in the cave association Kubach e. V., which today has over 300 members. Karl-Heinz Schröder became the first chairman.

Due to the promising images, it was time to establish access to the caves for research purposes. Since the association had only limited financial resources, the project turned out to be difficult. The smaller cave was covered by 13 meters of rock, mainly limestone, the larger of about 20 meters of clay and scarf stone and almost 20 meters of lime. The August Göttker company from Wathlingen near Celle drilled a shaft with a diameter of 60 centimeters to the high-lying small cave almost free of charge. The same company had drilled the shaft to the trapped miners in the Lengede mine disaster about ten years earlier . Newspapers and radio reported about the search. Reports also appeared several times on television that a cave had never been discovered and made accessible in this way in Germany.

A borehole right next to the road from Kubach to Freienfels had to be clarified beforehand with the road construction office, which insisted that the shaft next to the road would have to be refilled after a year. However, since it was needed for more than a year, a plot of land was exchanged with a farmer. In 1974 the Kubach community lost its independence and became a district of Weilburg. Previously, on 31 January 1974 Kubach had joined as a corporate member of the cave club and was in the cave club leasehold leave all important for caving and Indexing plots including the land exchange with the farmer so that the bore of August Göttker-shaft performed could be. Later the city of Weilburg, the community of Weinbach and the district committee of the Oberlahnkreis also joined the association.

On March 4, 1974, drilling of the shaft began and at the end of March a depth of 13 meters was reached, but no breakthrough into the cavity, as it was to the side of the search borehole. With the help of Hessian cave researchers, however, an access from the bottom of the shaft to the cave could be blown up. At the end of March, the inauguration of August-Göttker-Schacht I took place in the presence of a television team from Hessen 3 and numerous political celebrities. On April 1, 1974, a television team from Hessen 3 was roped off together with the speleologists for a detailed report. They came under the road into a cave 15 meters long and 13 meters wide and 10 meters high. It was called the Little Chapel because of its shape . From this cavity one corridor led towards Kubach, the north corridor , and another in the direction of Freienfels, the south corridor . The large cavity, discovered earlier, was located in this direction at a depth of almost 40 meters. The club members began to clear the clay in the south corridor with a winch and a large bucket. Work was mostly done on weekends, especially on Sunday mornings. Beautiful calcite drusen emerged from inconspicuous limestones when they were broken . The discoveries impressed journalists and politicians. Schröder often led people into the chapel. However, there were still no public funds available for further development of the cave. Funding should only be given when visitors were able to enter the large cavity .

Pearl sinter

The deeper you got, the more difficult the work became. The Schäfer company donated a construction trailer and Elektrizitäts-Aktiengesellschaft Mitteldeutschland (EAM), today E.ON Mitte , a transformer station for light in the cave and in the construction trailer. By the end of the summer of 1974, the corridor had been exposed over a length of 15 meters. This led steeply downhill with a gradient of 45 percent and seemed to miss the large cave. Fewer and fewer members of the cave club were willing to take on the trouble of digging, so that the work had to be stopped. Margrit Schröder managed to win the Göttker company again free of charge for drilling. She worked, including later search bores, for a donation receipt of almost 100,000 German marks for the cave association. On September 3, 1974, the drilling of the new shaft began. The drill rig experienced multiple problems and required several repairs. The drill head finally tore off at a depth of 28 meters, so that the drilling company wanted to give up the operation. The drill master Wachner managed to slide upside down into the shaft and fasten the drill head to a catcher so that it could be pulled upwards. Since a new drill head cost several thousand German marks, the company initially hesitated to continue drilling. Ms. Schröder was able to persuade the company boss again. A drill head with a diameter of 50 instead of 60 centimeters was used. The large cave should have been reached at a depth of 39 meters. The drilling continued for days, but no cavity opened up. The club members already believed that they would have drilled past the cavity, as with the first shaft. On October 15, 1974, the ceiling of the large cavity was finally breached at a depth of about 44 meters. As it turned out later, the shaft drilling as well as the search drilling ran at an angle, so that the drilling distance had become longer.

Development

Master drill Wachner was the first to be lowered down a wire rope ladder from the drill rig through the shaft. After a long time he came back and shouted, “Wonderful! A unique experience! There's no such thing as beautiful again! ” After that, board member Ewald Cromm, his wife and other board members, including Karl-Heinz Schröder, stepped down. They were all overwhelmed by the beauty of the pearl dripstones, the crystals glittering in the light of the flashlights. But it also quickly became apparent that the cave was not the stalactite cave known from the end of the 19th century. This was often searched for later. The then State Secretary in the Hessian Ministry of Economics and Technology, Helmut Schnorr, said on October 18, 1974 after a tour of the cave in an interview with Zeitfunk : “We know that we have very few such sights in Hesse, not to say , throughout Germany. Fantastic! ” Professor Rietschel from the Senckenberg Nature Museum said in an interview on July 6, 1976: “ This cave is a sensation, not only for the Lahn region and the entire slate mountains on the right bank of the Rhine. It is a major tourist attraction, in terms of size and extent it is unique! ” On January 4, 1975 the Hessenschau reported: “ The specialty of the Kubach crystal cave lies in the rich crystal jewelry on the ceilings and walls. The origin of this natural phenomenon, which experts consider unique in Europe, has not yet been clarified. "

Access to the inclined shaft

Since the crystal cave as the third attraction next to the Weilburg Castle with the local history and mining museum and the wildlife park Tiergarten Weilburg fit well into the tourism concept of the area, it was quickly agreed to open up the crystal cave in order to make it accessible to the public as a show cave . The city of Weilburg and the Kubach cave association signed a contract on June 22, 1975 for the development, use and maintenance of the Kubacher cave. The city of Weilburg was responsible for the necessary construction work to enable subsidies with public funds. The later operation of the show caves and the further exploration of the Kubach caves were incumbent on the cave association. The development costs were estimated at around two million German marks. The cave club had to raise 20 percent of this in the form of own contributions. The state of Hesse contributed 60 percent, the Limburg-Weilburg district and the city of Weilburg each contributed 10 percent. A cave committee was supposed to coordinate the development measures and was responsible for tenders and the award of contracts. In the early days, the head of the Weilburg mining office, government director Karl Dietrich Wolter, and from 1977 the head of the municipal construction office in Weilburg, Röth, headed the committee.

In October 1975 the construction of a 2.50 meter wide and high access tunnel to the cave began. Since this was to have a cover of 2.50 meters in the entrance area, a correspondingly wide access had to be dredged at an angle to a depth of five meters in the flat meadow area in order to expose a five-meter high rock wall into which the tunnel was driven. For this, the company Schäfer could be won again. At the end of October 1975, heatable construction trailers were set up so that work could be carried out throughout the winter. Following a tender, the Müller-Gönnern company was commissioned with the actual tunnel construction. After drilling and blasting, the crushed limestone was removed with an excavator. The deeper you got, the more difficult it was to get fresh air. They made do with a hose connection over the August-Göttker-Schacht I. After a distance of 150 meters including the terrain cut and at a depth of almost 53 meters, the northwest corner of the cave was reached on May 20, 1976, as it had been calculated. The last demolition was carried out by the then mayor of Weilburg, Bodo Abt. For safety reasons, the tunnel was lined with shotcrete.

Open-air museum with various pieces of rock

After that, many politicians and journalists went to the cave. Then, steps were worked into the upper part of the tunnel and in the middle part of the cave. A grating walkway was installed in the south hall. The cave received electrical lighting and a guide way. The material transport was not easy. Gravel and sand were thrown through the shaft, but the cement had to be carried down. Club members laid a track system next to the stairs. From the Fortuna mine , which was about to be closed, they received two winches , one each for the upper and lower sections of the tunnel. Then the work material could be transported downwards and clay upwards by means of freight carts . When the tunnel was being built, a spring was cut shortly before the lower end. The water was diverted through a pipe and formed the Domsee. This overflows from a certain water level, so that the water flows through pipes into the south hall and then into the Weil . Since then, the Domsee has been a beautiful eye-catcher for visitors when the crystals on the wall are reflected in the water. The lake also protects the crystals from being broken off by visitors, for whom a platform was created opposite the stalactite group on the Domsee.

In the middle part of the cave there was a bottleneck to overcome. A passage there was only possible by sliding on the pants. The Technische Hilfswerk (THW) drilled into a rock that looked like a poodle and was decorated with snow-white pearl dripstones. The constricting stone was removed and placed again a little above, where it was less disturbing. The bottleneck between the north and south halls was now eliminated. A parking lot was created outside and a farm building was erected. From the fall of 1976 to the beginning of 1981, active members of the association, mainly from the board, worked a total of around 15,000 hours. Karl-Heinz Schröder was the leading force in the development work and was there every day. He negotiated donations with companies, spoke to politicians and authorities when the flow of money stagnated and drove to the state government in Wiesbaden. His wife assisted him with office work and phone calls. In the end, there was a shortage of about 400,000 German marks that had to be paid for by the first admission fees. After the completion of the farm building and the parking lot, the cave was inaugurated on March 1st, 1981 with a big celebration. Previously, on August 31, 1979, it had been placed under nature protection as an individual monument .

Show cave

By touching dead stalagmite

The then Minister of Economic Affairs Heinz-Herbert Karry , the district administrator, the Weilburg mayor Abt and many other politicians and representatives from authorities and companies took part in the inauguration ceremony . Since the opening of the cave was reported on television, radio and many newspapers, there was a large number of visitors at the beginning of the show cave operation. In the first year almost 75,000 visitors came. In 1983 and 1984 the north corridor was lengthened by excavations and blasting so that it leads into the Schulerhöhlen area named after a miner , a cave area that was also discovered during the search drillings at the beginning of the 1970s. During the work, a system of corridors consisting of natural cave spaces and former mine tunnels was gradually discovered. In between there is a stalactite grotto discovered in 1984. Towards the end of the 1980s, the open-air museum was laid out in front of the cave entrance with various pieces of rock, arranged according to the way they were created. The largest stones weigh up to twelve tons. The inauguration took place on July 15, 1988. Between 1989 and 1994 the connecting passage between the chapel and the crystal cave was enlarged. It was already dug here in 1974 without success. The resulting corridor is called the chapel corridor and is now used by visitors as a way back.

In 1996 the research was intensified again. The Kubach Kalk tunnel , a former mining tunnel on the edge of the cave area in the direction of Kubach, was expanded and lengthened . The tunnel has a total length of 270 meters, with a total of 180 meters being excavated from 1996 to 2004. He should once reach the Schulerhöhlen area in order to discover new caves and passages along the way. The end points of the tunnel and the Schulerhöhle are about 95 meters apart on the same level.

On July 19, 1997, the cave museum was inaugurated on the first floor of the farm building. It provides an overview of various minerals and shows documentation on the discovery and development history of the crystal cave, but also on phosphorite mining. On August 15, 2000, the millionth visitor was welcomed to the crystal cave. In 2007 and 2009, search drillings for the stalactite cave took place again, but as in previous years they were unsuccessful. In November 2014, a cavity was drilled that is at least 25 to 30 meters high. It was not initially clear whether the discovery was the upholstered cave that had been sought for decades, but later it turned out that it was not.

description

Farm buildings

In a total of about 140 meters long tunnel it goes in a south-westerly direction over 347 steps down to the entrance of the cave. After about 85 meters in the tunnel, a platform is reached. From there you first come into the first cave room, the chapel . Originally it was a nine-meter-high dome-like room with a diameter of 15 meters from north to south and 13 meters from east to west. The water has washed out numerous pools and dents from the rock. On the south wall individual gray-white crystal druses made of calcite can be seen. At the edge of the chapel there is an emergency exit in a 13 meter high drill shaft with a diameter of 60 centimeters to the outside, through which the cave was entered for the first time. In the shaft there is an iron ladder, at the top it is closed with a manhole cover.

From the chapel there are corridors in two directions, to the northwest a 35 meter long corridor into the school class area , which is not yet accessible. The other corridor to the south serves as a way back for guided tours after it has been freed from the flooded clay. Via the inclined tunnel, which makes a slight bend there, it goes down with a slope of 34.8 degrees. After the remaining 55 meters of the tunnel, the actual crystal cave is reached, which is closed by a lattice gate. From there the corridor leads to the cathedral after a few meters . This room is 23 meters high and the walls are covered with countless calcite crystals. On the left is the Domsee , which was artificially created during the development work. The lake is fed by a spring near the lattice door at the end of the sloping tunnel that was cut during the development. The spring pours 144 liters per hour, which are fed into the lake via underground pipes. The wall behind the Domsee is particularly thick with glittering crystals. At a height of six meters there are two windows one above the other, from which one can look into a cavity, the gallery, which is entered on the way back.

On the opposite side, at the height of the window, a fracture joint can be seen that runs through the entire cave. Investigations have shown that rock layers have shifted from one another there. A black, ore-containing mass has settled in the fracture joint . In this area, white stalactites have also settled into individual, fine crevices and closed them. Rocks converging from the right and left mark the southern end of the cathedral. The 45-meter-deep August-Göttker-Schacht II ends in the left ledge, which is piped upwards and closed with a manhole cover. The cave was discovered through this shaft in 1974. At the foot of the shaft, a picture of a cave explorer standing on a wire rope ladder reminds of the discovery of the cave.

Sinter deposits in the cave

After the bottleneck at the ledges, the cave widens again. On the ceiling in the middle of the room, at a height of six meters, you can see the 86 millimeter thick drill hole through which the cave was first drilled and photographed. A replica of the camera is attached to the ceiling of the cave next to the borehole. From there, a large group of stalactites on the west wall of the cave, behind a rock niche, was photographed. It consists of a stalagmite almost as high as a man , above which hang several grape-shaped stalactite formations four meters long. The wall below the stalactite group is covered with a thick sintered layer. In the upper area there are two small floor drip stones. The seepage water that forms the stalactites drips in through a circular hole above the stalactites.

Concrete steps go down through the poodle area into the deeper area of ​​the cave. A platform has been created there that reaches up to the rocks and gives visitors a panoramic view of the spaciousness of the central part of the cave. There are dents on the ceiling that were created by the leaching activity of the water. The passage winds several meters deeper into the interior of the cave. The rock walls form the saddle eleven meters steeply upwards . In this area, strong fissures in the rock gave rise to bizarre rock formations. In order not to destroy the countless crystals on the walls, the passage was not widened. The bottleneck below the rock saddle can only be passed one after the other, with rocky peaks making it necessary to wear protective helmets.

This is where the so-called poodle used to be , a boulder that looked like a small dog. This had made the way into the southern part of the cave very difficult, as it was difficult to squeeze between it and the rock saddle above. After passing the current bottleneck, the view extends into the up to 30 meter high hall of the southern part of the cave. The particularly large rock wall on the left is littered with millions of snow-white pearl dripstones. The right rock face also shows numerous pearl stalactites. Between the crystal walls, the path goes deeper towards the southern end of the cave. The ceiling arches about 30 meters above the south hall , the highest hall of all show caves in Germany. After winters with lots of precipitation, the summer lake forms in the spring and summer months and slowly disappears again in autumn.

Pearl dripstones

At the end of the south hall, the narrow corridor widens into a semicircle. This is where the deepest point of the crystal cave and all show caves in Germany is reached. In this area there were numerous fossils and beautiful calcite druses on the rock walls and sintering on the ceiling. There are calcite crystals in the ceiling area. On the right wall you can see beautiful spherical stalactites and bacon sinter at a height of about ten meters. The cave can still be entered crawling 8.2 meters in a straight line until the 30 centimeter high gap between the cave clay and the rock ceiling with dripstones continues. The water from the summer lake drains there and to the crypt .

Next to the south hall on the left is an adjoining hall, the crypt , an approximately 2.5 meter high and 6 meter long cavity that is littered with many limestone blocks. It can only be reached by crawling through a narrow, low corridor. In addition, an approximately ten meter high chimney reaches up, which is filled with boulder clay. It is suspected that further backfilled parts of the cave are also present. The crypt narrows to the south to a crevice that continues in a sloping layer joint. This crevice can still be crawled for 13 meters, until further penetration is impossible due to the alluvial cave clay.

tourism

Source: Cave Association Kubach e. V.

The crystal cave can be reached on the road from Kubach to Freienfels. There is a large parking lot and the open-air stone museum at the cave . The farm building houses the access to the cave, a restaurant, toilet facilities and the cave museum on the upper floor. The guided tours, which take place every day from April to October, last about 45 minutes and use easily accessible paths and stairs to the individual departments and 456 steps down, with a height difference of about 75 meters. The approximately 310 meter long way there leads 140 meters through the inclined tunnel. With the exception of a short section, the same route is used as a route as a route there and back. Halloween is celebrated there every year , and concerts are occasionally given. The temperature in the cave is around nine degrees Celsius, the relative humidity 85 percent.

The crystal cave is a tourist attraction for the partially structurally weak region around Weilburg. From the day of the opening on March 13, 1981 to October 1981, 73,394 people visited the cave. This was the highest number of visitors in a year so far. After the opening, the annual number of visitors dropped to 50,000 to 60,000. The second best visit with 60,081 was in 1985. Since then, there has been a steady, slight decline in visitors with a temporary increase. In 1998 the number of visitors fell below the 50,000 mark for the first time at 49,071. In 2005, fewer than 40,000 were counted for the first time with 39,129 visitors. In 2010, 37,288 people were recorded, in 2011, the worst year so far, 29,412. Between 2007 and 2011, an annual average of 34,358 visitors came to the cave. With this value, the show cave is in the middle of the show caves in Germany. From the opening of the cave to the end of 2011, a total of 1.5 million people visited the cave.

See also

literature

  • Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . Ed .: Höhlenverein Kubach e. V. print GmbH - Weilburg - Waldhausen, Weilburg 2010.
  • Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . Ed .: Höhlenverein Kubach e. V. 4th edition. Immel & Schuy Druck GmbH, Leun-Biskirchen 2005.
  • Karl-Heinz Schröder: Millions of years ago - the history of our landscape and the formation of the Kubach caves . Ed .: Höhlenverein Kubach e. V. 5th edition. Kissel Verlag, Beselich 2003.
  • Thomas Reischmann, Adalbert Schraft: Hesse's underworld - show caves and visitor mines in Hesse . Ed .: Hessian State Office for Environment and Geology. Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-89026-360-1 .
  • Stephan Kempe, Wilfried Rosendahl: Caves - Hidden Worlds . Primus Verlag, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-89678-611-1 .
  • World full of secrets - caves . In: Stephan Kempe (Ed.): HB Bildatlas special edition 17 . HB Verlags- und Vertriebs-Gesellschaft, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-616-06739-1 .
  • Hans Binder, Anke Luz, Hans Martin Luz: Show caves in Germany . Aegis Verlag, Ulm 1993, ISBN 3-87005-040-3 .

Web links

Commons : Kubacher Kristallhöhle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Reischmann, Adalbert Schraft: Hessens Unterwelt - Show caves and visitor mines in Hessen . S. 103 .
  2. ↑ a b c Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 5 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 6 .
  4. ↑ Kubach, Sept. 13th, in: Weilburger Tageblatt . September 15, 1906.
  5. ↑ a b Bergrat Polster: Expert opinion . Weilburg March 19, 1907.
  6. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 7 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Timetable of the Kubach crystal cave. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 11, 2012 ; accessed on March 12, 2017 .
  8. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 3 .
  9. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 4 .
  10. ^ Walter Gellert, Herbert Küstner: Small encyclopedia - nature . Publishing house encyclopedia, 1963.
  11. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 10 .
  12. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 11 .
  13. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 11-12 .
  14. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 12 .
  15. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 15 .
  16. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 16 .
  17. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 14 .
  18. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 17 .
  19. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 19 .
  20. ↑ a b c Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 18 .
  21. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 21 .
  22. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 23 .
  23. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 24 .
  24. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 25 .
  25. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 26 .
  26. ^ A b Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . S. 1 .
  27. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . 1981, p. 2 .
  28. ↑ a b Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 31 .
  29. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 32 .
  30. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 33 .
  31. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 34 .
  32. ↑ a b c Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 35 .
  33. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 35-36 .
  34. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 36 .
  35. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 37 .
  36. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 39 .
  37. ↑ a b c Kubach limestone tunnel. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on May 23, 2013 ; accessed on March 12, 2017 .
  38. ↑ Karl-Heinz Schröder: The discovery of the Kubach crystal cave . S. 44 .
  39. ↑  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.mittelhessen.de
  40. ↑ Mona Jaeger: Glowing into the pit. For more than 40 years, a handful of men have been looking for a stalactite cave . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 14, 2015, p. 9.
  41. ^ A b Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . S. 21-22 .
  42. ^ Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . S. 22-23 .
  43. ^ Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . S. 25 .
  44. ^ Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . S. 25-27 .
  45. ^ Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . S. 27-28 .
  46. ^ A b Karl-Heinz Schröder: Guide through the Kubach crystal cave . S. 28 .
  47. ↑ a b c Information on the Kubach crystal cave. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 23, 2013 ; accessed on March 12, 2017 .
  48. ↑ Kubach Cave Association e. V. Braunfels-Tiefenbach. 2011.
This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 4, 2012 in this version .