Cellon stollen
The Cellonstollen is an underground via ferrata on the southeast side of the Frischenkofel (Italian: Cellon) on the Plöckenpass in Carinthia , Austria , on the border with Italy . It was laid out by Austrian troops as a bullet-proof supply route during the First World War .
history
In the course of the mountain war , the Italian troops took possession of the Cellon summit in June 1916, thereby threatening the Austrian troops on the Cellon shoulder below. In order to be able to hold this, the Austrian positions and the supply route had to be relocated into the rock. The work continued until late autumn 1917 when the Italian front collapsed due to the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo . The tunnel was therefore not completed in the lowest area.
For the open-air museum on the Plöckenpass, the old climb was reconstructed under Walther Schaumann and his friends in the Dolomites and made accessible again; Army mountain guides cleared the tunnel from the rubble and the rotten wooden stairs in 1986/87 and insured it with steel cables and iron clips. It thus became the first underground via ferrata in Carinthia and is the only historically reconstructed and underground via ferrata in Austria.
In July 2017, the Cellon tunnel appeared in a list of the 8 most special via ferratas in Austria published by Red Bull GmbH .
Location and inspection
The lower entrance of the Cellon tunnel is around 300 meters as the crow flies northwest of the Plöckenpass (1360 m) and around 200 meters higher (1550 m). The slightly winding tunnel is 183 meters long, leads in a westerly direction and only 100 meters away from today's borderline steeply upwards and overcomes 110 meters in altitude. 14 rock windows provide some light, but a headlamp is advisable. The upper entrance is in the area of the Cellon shoulder (1660 m).
In contrast to the via ferrata Oberst Gressel a little further to the west, it is the sporty and less demanding variant on the shoulder in terms of the view. From there you can reach the Steinbergerweg and Weg ohne Grenzen via ferrata , both of which lead to the summit ridge of the Frischenkofel.
swell
- Announcements of the State Association for Speleology, 2000/2, serial no. 106, 46th year
- Topography of the Cellonstollen with Steinbergerweg on the homepage of the Alpine Club, section Obergailtal-Lesachtal
literature
- Via ferrata atlas Alps by Paul Werner, Iris Kürschner, Thomas Huttenlocher and Jochen Hemmleb.
- Via ferrata guide Austria by Axel Jentzsch-Rabl, Andreas Jentzsch and Dieter Wissekal.