Along the waters of the Bükk

Itinerary:

• Start on the red heart-shaped educational trail marker of the Csanyik blood circle, passing through the parking lot next to the bus stop, touching the King’s Well.
• In the Forrás Valley, follow the P+ marker, which leads in front of the Goat’s Hole.
• At the middle of the Forrás Valley, make a short detour to the Flóra Spring on the P● marker.
• After leaving the Upper Spring, follow the Z marker for a short section.
• Along the Z● marker, arrive at the Andó Well, then walk back to the S marker.
• On the S marker, then on a short section of the P marker, arrive at the Csókás junction.
• Follow the P+ marker down to the Garadna Valley to the Lillafüred Trout Farm.

Detailed description of the tour: 

At the bottom of the Forrás Valley

Starting from the entrance of Csanyik Valley, at the pharmacy parking lot next to the bus stop, head towards the building entrance, but turn left towards the valley floor, and cross a small bridge over the stream following the red heart marker (Csanyik blood circle). Cut right across the meadow, then follow the meandering stream along a scenic forest path. After another stream crossing, reach a forest clearing with an old house at the edge. On the other side of the clearing, the stream bed only fills with water during rainy weather; otherwise, the creek emerging from Forrás Valley here flows underground between stones. There are several such sections in Forrás Valley where the water flows at a deeper level like a subterranean stream, and only flows above ground after heavy rain.

On the other side of the bed is the King’s Well, one of the most reliable springs in the area, thus serving Miskolc’s water supply. The well house and its protection area can be found in dense bushes on the mountain edge, from where water is constantly transmitted with a low yield through a concrete spring channel. Most of the spring water has to leave the spring basin underground through pipes. Next to the King’s Well is a small meadow bordered by centuries-old beech trees where a picnic area has been created.

Beyond the clearing, enter the closed limestone gorge, encountering spectacular karst phenomena right at the start. In the shady gorge forest, walk along a rocky cart track. Within the first hundred meters, hollow rock cavities whiten the steep mountainside. Within almost a hundred meters, on the right side beyond a small clearing, a triangular-shaped dark cave entrance emerges from the rock face. Climbing a few steps to the cave level, you may look into the spacious Goat’s Hole, shrouded in damp darkness. During rainy weather, a small stream runs from the cave, but the cool, damp breath of the mountain interior can already be felt in the entrance chamber. The moist climate provides an ideal habitat for ferns and mosses growing from the rock face in front of the cave, while the spacious cave hall houses valuable arthropods. Here early in the 20th century, the Gebhart blind cave cricket and uniquely distinct spider fauna, separated by light and food sources, were first described. Behind the narrowing entrance hall, the subterranean stream can be followed for several hundred meters, where the widening work of the stream is clearly visible as horizontal strips running along the wall in grooves of varying depths.

After the cave adventures, continue the tour in the gorge, quickly reaching a wider area where the rocky ridge of Dolka Peak pushes into the valley from the left. A few hundred meters above, on the ridge edge, opens the Büdös-pest spring cave, similar to the Goat’s Hole, but representing a higher outflow level in the past when the valley floor was also higher. The cave environment has now severely deteriorated, only a 35-meter chimney-shaped chamber remains. However, an extremely rich fossil animal find of several hundred thousand years was uncovered from its floor filling: bones of all major Ice Age animals, from cave lions to mammoths were found in the cave. If curious about the special karst formation, it's worth enduring this few hundred meters detour on the P◼, then turning right on the PΩ marker to Büdös-pest – although the last few meters are quite steep, rocky, and difficult to walk.

On the upper section of Forrás Valley

The valley floor bypassing the Dolka Ridge emerges from the tight embrace of the mountains on the opposite side, followed by a wider, more open section with clearings and willow and alder groves. The wide bulldozer road gently climbs the sloping side to avoid the wet area where several springs emerge on the valley’s opposite side. This spring group is called Middle Spring, referring to its location in the valley. We make a detour to the highest-emerging Flora Spring using the P● marker. Where the valley floor is widest, a small path branches off to the left across a marshy meadow to the opposite side. Crossing the dense nettle thickets of acsalapu, we ford the flat, swampy valley bottom, then cross the stream in the willow and alder grove on the opposite side. We gently climb the opposite mountainside where, after a few hundred meters, the path passes beside a small stream on a flat plateau above the slope. A cozy resting spot has been created in the middle of this secluded spring basin, and crystal clear karst water emerges from a spring house overgrown with ferns and mosses on the hillside.

Returning to the valley, follow the P+ marker along the edge of the marsh, then again through a shady gorge forest between the closing sides. A small terrain step follows leading to the uppermost corner of Forrás Valley. The valley, surrounded by densely grown rock walls, exudes an ancient forest atmosphere with moss-covered boulders and decayed trunks. At the upper end of the steep gorge section, cross the stream, which, thanks to the high lime content, covers the surface with light brown limestone crust along with fallen leaves, branches, and debris. The lime precipitation sticks together plant debris and over time creates porous tufa dams and wasp stone cones in the creek, over which water tumbles with veil-like ripples. The spring feeding the creek has also been connected to Miskolc’s water supply, so the creek flowing with thousands of small waterfalls is only visible during rainy weather, especially in spring.

At the end of the few hundred-meter ascent in the gorge, arrive among old beech trees at the Upper Spring Basin, where following the meandering creek flowing across a flat valley floor and crossing a small wooden bridge, reach the forest clearing at the basin edge. A cozy forest resting place welcomes in huge fallen trees on the edge of the meadow, just about a hundred meters from the mossy springs flowing from among the boulders. The spring reservoir is hidden in a fenced small house but a metal pipe lets out the water necessary to keep the stream alive. During rainy weather, countless cascades break to the surface through the debris on the slope surrounding the spring. The shaded spring basin has a very intimate atmosphere, with the newborn creek spreading among old trees forming a marshy grove full of coltsfoot and violet in spring, surrounded on the sides by an impenetrable, damp, primeval forest-like thicket where the steep, rocky mountainsides disappear.

The road leading out of the valley bottom cuts across the western end of the basin and climbs up the valley through a very steep beech forest slope. To the left of the road, just hidden by the rocky, densely forested mountainside, opens the Upper Spring Cave, which, with its larger opening and arches than the Goat’s Hole and Büdös-pest, marks an old, now inactive outflow point of the spring. At the end of the steep climb overcoming nearly 50 meters of elevation, come out to the spacious, dense hornbeam-oak area of the Kis-Fennsík plateau, intersected by several forest management and hiking trails.

Among the sinkholes of Kis-Fennsík

Before continuing, it’s worth visiting the Kaszásrét resurgence, located just west of the junction, about a hundred meters away along the unmarked path. Here the gently flowing stream in a shallow valley makes a big arc to disappear in the sinkhole at the bottom of the sinkhole, to reappear a hundred meters below in the Upper Spring on the other side of the saddle. Right above the resurgence opens the Lilla Cave, which functioned as an older surface sinkhole.

Turn back east on the Z marker bordering the upper basin of Forrás Valley from the north, then after a comfortable few hundred meters walk, turn left onto the forestry road marked Z● leading deep into the plateau. Proper valleys could not form on the highly soluble limestone plateau because water seeps deep along cracks and dissolves the limestone as it moves underground. As a result, concentric depressions and sinkholes form along the plateau, aligning with the main fracture directions. We also start on such a series of sinkholes heading northwest through the dense hornbeam-oak forest.

For the next over a kilometer, we circle the depressions on a nearly even, shady forest road between Kőlyuk-galya and Galya Peak. The mountain to the west is not called Kőlyuk-galya by accident: on its side open numerous strictly protected caves, like Kőlyuk, Venus Cave, or Jenő Hildebrand Cave. The latter features unexplained bear claw marks on its walls and column remains erected deep inside the cave, uncovered by last century’s cave researchers.

Approaching the edge of Kis-Fennsík, beyond the Galya Gate, the road begins to descend markedly into the incised valley bottom. Cross the S marker, which will accompany our further path, but first descend further on the Z● marker for a short detour to visit the Andó Well located right below us. The Andóbikk plateau’s collapse is home to substantial beech forests; descend to the Andó Well basin in such an old beech forest.

In the Andóbikk Forest

In the amphitheater-like hollow, among gray beech trunks, hides an extremely charming clearing. From the mountain’s belly springs a karst spring with substantial yield, feeding an artificially created tear-drop-shaped pond in the middle of the meadow. A small island with an open-sided, round rain shelter was built on the pond, as if in an English castle’s park. On the meadow’s opposite side, a tent-roofed rain shelter, benches, and tables make resting even more comfortable, and beyond the benches is the stop of the Mahóca narrow-gauge railway. In the mid-20th century, trains regularly ran here, making the Andó Well a popular destination for weekend picnickers and stew-cookers.

Climb back to the S marker up the hillside, follow the bulldozer road west, which leads in a large loop out of the northern slope of Andó Bükk. Initially, through old beech forests, then bypassing a large clear-cut, we climb back to Kis-Fennsík. Our path again goes through dense hornbeam-oak forests amid the plateau’s sinkholes. When arriving at the Csókás road, we follow the traffic-closed asphalt for almost a kilometer. The S marker branches off to the right on a forest road after one kilometer, to the other side of the sinkhole series, but if this turn is missed, it still leads to the Csókás junction.

Back across the plateau to the Garadna Valley

From the S marker, shortly switch to the P marker, heading south a few hundred meters, crossing the Csókás road at the edge of a clear-cut. The P marker leads into the beech forest on the opposite side, where we immediately turn right onto the P+ marker leading to Garadna Valley. The initially comfortable slalom among old beeches quickly turns into a steep descent. Here, the Garadna Valley deeply cuts between the Great and Small Fennsík, with the Garadna Stream flowing about a hundred and fifty meters below Csókás. Near the end of the descent, we touch the Linden Well, which springs a few steps below the path among old beech trunks at the bottom of the incision.

Soon we reach the Ómassa road, where our tour ends at the Trout bus stop opposite. However, it is worth visiting the Lillafüred Trout Farm located just below us on the banks of the Garadna Stream. The venerable log building is the basis for trout farming and conservation of the native species. In the early 20th century, the region’s great biologist István Vásárhelyi started trout breeding here in Bükk, on the spring-surrounded shady stream bank. Several tens of thousands of fish of different sizes and ages are raised in numerous pools under careful hands. A significant portion, however, is farmed in the trout smoking house, which is one of the curiosities of gastro-tourism lodged in the alder grove by the stream.