by Peter
Jeutter
At
the flank, where the south eastern massive of the Totes Gebirge rises up to the
naked karst fields and further to Planka Mira mountain (2188m) lies a small
foothill, the Brettstein.
Early
explorations of karst features and caves have been carried out by Alfred Auer
and Dr. Günter Graf in the fifties and sixties. Many entrances were located and
several caves explored and surveyed.
That
time the most famous cave in the area was the Brettstein-Bärenhöhle, were
bones of bears and other stone age animals were found. However for a long time
no proper research of the sediments was hold. In 1995 Prof. Dr. Gernot Rabeder
started with the excavation of the cave deposits and continued until 1997.
Several cave bears (ursus spelaeus) were found. A detailed publication covering
all results and aspects of this research will be published soon.
Several
trips into the Eisschacht, a cave close to the Brettstein-Bärenhöhle, were led
by Gunter Limberger in the late seventies and early eighties. The Eisschacht
group managed to explore and survey the cave to a depth of 241.1m. Sometimes
they had to abseil through an entire ice channel. A proper map was drawn up by
Limberger.
Only
in 1995 explorations continued. Robert Seebacher was asked by Rabeder to survey
the cave in order to complete his work on the bone excavations. Seebacher
started in 1996 with a re-survey of the cave and discovered many new passages.
Initiated by Seebacher a five day camp with international speleologists was
during summer 1996. Speleologists from Austria, Czech Republic and Germany
explored over 2 km of passage. The success of 1996 led into another camp in
1997. In addition to the previous explorations more speleologists even one from
Venezuela joined the International Brettstein Team.
The
new explorations brought some surprise. A lot of caves could be connected and
many new passages found. The long known Sinterhöhle was connected to Eisschacht
and Rieseneinbruch. The Firnschlucker a well known doline could be entered
through an ice squeeze, large tunnels were found. With the discovery of the
Golanschacht the missing link between Sinterhöhle and Firnschlucker was found.
The
explorations continued until 2000. The major discovery of 1997 was the Enix cave.
Situated just 150mnorth of the End of Firnschlucker the cave is likely to be
connected to the Sinterhöhle system. The cave was surveyed to about 700m length
in 1997. In 1998/1999 and 2000 further exploration was carried out in Enix and
the total cave length is 1,9km in summer 2000 at a depth of -143m. More big
tunnels and two big chambers were discovered. Today Enix still holds a lot of
potential, particularly towards the centre of the mountains. The draft tells
that the main extensions are supposed to lead right into the massive. However
the Connection to Sinterhöhle could not be made, but the some parts come as
close as 25m!
In
Brettstein-Bärenhöhle and Eisschacht (Sinterhöhle-system) another 500m could
be explored and surveyed and the lower parts of Eisschacht were inspected for
further exploration possibilities in 1998 and 1999.
In
Brettstein-Bärenhöhle big passages were found in the southern parts and
finally connected to the Große Brettsteinhöhle. This brings the cave to a
length of more than 4km.
Overall
the Brettstein Caves have a cave length of over 11 km. The main systems in
Brettstein area so far are Brettstein-Bärenhöhle (> 4km) km) and the
Sinterhöhle-Eisschacht-Firnschlucker system (2,8 km), which
includes
also Riesenenbruch and Golanschacht.