Schönstein Cave

Schönstein Cave
	Entrance to Schönstein Cave
Location:	Streitberg , Franconian Switzerland , Germany
Height :	504 m above sea level NN
Geographic ; location:	49 ° 49 '4.3 " N , 11 ° 14' 43" E Coordinates: 49 ° 49 '4.3 " N , 11 ° 14' 43" E
Cadastral number:	C 9
Geology:	dolomite
Type:	Crevice cave
Show cave since:	No
Lighting:	No
Overall length:	600 meters
Level difference:	−19 meters
Particularities:	Closed October to May

The Schönstein cave is a natural karst cave near Neudorf , a district of Wiesenttal in the Upper Franconian district of Forchheim in Bavaria .

location

The Schönstein and Brunnstein caves are in the Sommerrangen corridor at the foot of a dolomite massif on the eastern slope of the Long Valley. The entrances to both caves are close to each other and are about two kilometers northeast of Streitberg .

description

The Schönstein Cave is one of the most famous caves in Franconian Switzerland . Together with the Brunnstein cave and the swing arch, it is the rest of a former cave system . The geographical location of Schönstein and Brunnstein caves, only a few meters below the edge of the plateau and around 150 meters above today's Wiesent level, shows that it is a very old cave system. Due to the connection with the Brunnstein cave, the Schönstein cave is a through cave . However, the connecting passage in the Brunnstein cave was closed with an iron bar and can no longer be crossed. The cave is registered as C 9 in the Franconian Alb cave register (HFA). The cave has a total passage length of about 600 and a height difference of 19 meters. With its three shafts and one smaller floor, it belongs to the type of combined crevice , shaft , floor and stalactite caves .

What is striking about the cave system is the mutually perpendicular arrangement of the fissures in the main or split directions north-north-west-south-south-east or north-north-east-south-south-west. This rift arrangement also recurs outside the cave with the formation of the valley in Franconian Switzerland. In 1904 Neischl described this fracture system as lithoclases (Greek lithos , rock, klasis , break).

The cave is located in the dolomite rock of the Malm Beta and is partly richly sintered on the walls and floors . You can read about the former sinter splendor of the cave in old writings. In 1904 the cave researcher Neischl reported about sintered pearls, huge, partly already broken stalactites and delicate stalagmites growing on them . Much sintered jewelry was stolen from the cave in the 20th century. So also were stalactites to decorate the near Binghöhle broken. In the rear, some walls and corridors are still heavily sintered. Water level marks can be seen in the area of the Salzburger Schlünde.

Tour of the cave

At the entrance to the Schönstein Cave, a rocky step leads into a high and narrow crevasse. The entrance is secured by an iron door that is locked in winter. In this corridor you will notice a clear draft of air at high or low outside temperatures. It is a consequence of dynamic ventilation and occurs in caves with entrances at different altitudes. The almost constant temperature of the cave air moves up or down depending on the outside temperature inside the cave. The warmer cave air flows out through the higher-lying entrance in winter and the warmer outside air flows in in summer. It's the other way around at the lower entrance.

After about 20 meters you get to the main room, the Great Hall. This is about 25 meters long, 18 meters wide and up to 8 meters high. In the middle of the room are the remains of an old wooden walkway over a depression in the floor. The “Mount of Olives” on the southwest wall of the hall is an accumulation of heavily over-sintered broken blocks and fragments of stalagmites. At the end of the Great Hall, an approximately seven-meter-deep shaft leads into the “Martha-Keller”, a lower cave storey with large ceiling blocks and dolomite sand floor. On the side of the shaft you get between two stalactite columns in the "Poldi column", a sintered chasm with a water basin and a large stalactite column.

Between the shaft and the Mount of Olives on the left, two crevices that reunite lead further into the interior of the cave. At the crossroads on the left you come to the high "Neischl column". The walls are heavily sintered there. In the ground, holes open between terminal blocks to form an abyss about twelve meters deep. Shortly before the end of the column, a corridor branches off to the right. This ten meter long silt stretch is provided with plenty of water basins. At the end of this route you come to the "Reger columns". The sintered soil is only interrupted by a transverse gap that widens the duct profile a little. Behind a loophole, the passage becomes a little higher again. Following the main corridor, which is narrowed somewhat by a stalactite column, you get to the “Knebel-Halle”. The walls there consist of sintered plumes and cascades. The sintered soil layer then suddenly breaks off. On the wall on the left is the decapitated stump of a stalagmite, the tip of which is wedged a few meters deeper in the crevice. After the hall, which continues straight ahead, you get through a loophole to the left of a stalactite column into a small room, the floor of which drops after a few meters into the first of the "Salzburger Schlünde". You can climb over this shaft close to the right wall. From the small platform below this point, a loophole opens into the "Fritz columns", which are richly decorated with sintered curtains and lead down in a round arch to the second of the Salzburg gullies.

Blocked passage

In the room with the stalactite column, the "water column" on the left leads back into the Knebel Hall. At the end of the water column on the left, a corridor leads to the area of the “cross columns”. It is a network of narrow and tapering unadorned corridors. In a hall-like extension without sinter you can get back over a silt stretch either to the Great Hall or further to the closed transition of the Brunnstein Cave. For the latter, you sleep through three flat, rounded rooms, the “clay chambers”, to which the “Paradise Hall” adjoins.

The hall turns into a crevasse, the "Christlgang", which requires climbing technique with a steep step and two successive narrow passages. The football-sized opening at the bottom of the wall is the transition to the Brunnstein cave. Here you climb up the chimney of the “Abyssal Gap”, where a blocked narrow passage leads into the hall of the Brunnstein cave.

history

The area around the caves was already populated in the Latène period. Finds from prehistoric and medieval times prove an early use of both caves.

The cave was explored in 1774 by the speleologists Johann Christian Rosenmüller , Johann Friedrich Esper and August Goldfuß . At the end of the 19th century it was considered researched until Adalbert Neischl , Josef Reger, Friedrich Schöndorf and Walter von Knebel discovered other parts in the early 20th century. Salzburg researchers continued their explorations in the 1920s. In 1952 Herbert W. Franke and Willi Zaunik found the connection to the Brunnstein cave.

In 1991 the caves were placed under protection as a natural monument.

Today the cave is heavily used for tourism. Numerous adventurers, youth groups, tourists and also professionally guided groups visit the branched cave system. The cave suffered a lot from this mass rush. The Forchheim District Office has therefore already initiated measures to protect the cave.

Brunnstein Cave

About 30 meters southwest of the Schönstein Cave is the entrance to the Brunnstein Cave. The cave is registered as C 10 in the Franconian Alb cave register (HFA). The north-facing low entrance leads through a pre-grotto into the main cave, which is about 13 meters wide and 17 meters long. At the end of the hall there is an opening in the cave ceiling. A gap on the left wall is blocked and falls twelve meters down to the Schönstein cave.

Two further narrow openings on the southwest wall lead to an elongated, about 20 meters long, 4 meters wide and 3 meters high, periodically flooded corridor. This is the most beautiful part of the cave with a small lake ( sinter basin ), which gave the cave its name. It was previously used by the population as a well.

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Brunnsteinhöhle Halle, panoramic view April 2013

Swing arch

About 100 meters northeast of the Schönstein Cave is the Schwingbogen natural bridge , which belongs to the former cave system . The bridge is registered as C 52 in the Franconian Alb cave register (HFA). A little below the swing arch there is another small cave, the cave under the swing arch (C 53).

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Swing arch, panoramic view April 2013

Access

The Schönstein Cave is freely accessible from May to the end of September. In the winter months it is locked with an iron door to protect bats. The ramified system makes it easy for the uninitiated to get lost. The cave made headlines in the 1950s when tourists had to stay inside for several days. There are also some deep shafts in the cave, so accidents happen again and again. The cave should therefore only be entered with experienced guides and appropriate equipment.

The Brunnstein cave is freely accessible all year round.

Individual evidence

↑ Cave and Karst Franconia e. V .: Schönstein Cave (accessed on August 13, 2013)
^ Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation: D-4-6133-0127 (accessed on August 17, 2013)
^ Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation: D-4-6133-0118 (accessed on August 17, 2013)
↑ Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation: D-4-6133-0119 (accessed on August 17, 2013)
↑ Schönstein cave accessible again with restrictions (accessed on August 13, 2013)
↑ Nürnberger Nachrichten: Vacationers crashed into the Schönstein Cave (accessed on August 13, 2013)

literature

Brigitte Kaulich, Hermann Schaaf: Small guide to caves around Muggendorf. Natural History Society - Department for Cave and Karst Research, Nuremberg 1980, ISBN 3-922877-00-1 .
Friedrich Herrmann: Caves of the Franconian and Hersbrucker Switzerland. Nuremberg 1991, ISBN 3-418-00356-7 .
Stephan Lang: Höhlen in Franken, hiking guide into the underworld of Franconian Switzerland with new tours. Nuremberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-418-00385-6 .