Beautiful view: Pilis’ chimney does not smoke

Itinerary :

• Klastrompuszta must be left via the Z+ marked hiking trail, which runs together with the S marking.
• The trail turning right from the path, marked Z▲ leads to the Chimney rock.
• The route continues along the Z+ marking until it joins the P marked hiking trail coming from Pilis saddle (north).
• You turn left onto the less steep section of the PΩ marked path leading to the caves.
• From the caves, the KΩ marked hiking trail leads back to Klastrompuszta.

Tour description :

Klastrompuszta, a small resort village belonging to Kesztölc but hidden in the forest two kilometers from it, can be reached by about an hour’s drive from the center of Budapest. The area under the steeply falling cliffs of the southwestern Pilis Mountains, supplied with drinking water, was discovered in the 1200s by the Pauline monks, and the order’s center operated in the monastery built here. The tour also starts from the ruins of the monastery.

Next to the ruins lies the real main square of Klastrompuszta, with car parking, a tourist rest area (log bench and table). There was even a drinking water well here recently, but its pump handle was precisely sawed off by diligent hands, then the entire well was knocked down and its place filled in. (Strange.)

The National Blue Trail (with a stamp here) crosses this small square, as well as the S marked hiking trail between Esztergom and Budaörs, but it is not busy despite this. Opposite the monastery ruins stands a building that looks like a very tourist house, currently privately owned. The troubled history of the building perfectly reflects the history of domestic hiking.

As reported in an edition of Turisták Lapja in 1936, on September 24, 1888, a group of nine hikers rested by the Klastrom well. Enthusiastic people founded the Budapest Division of the Hungarian Carpathian Association here at the suggestion of a young doctor, Dr. Ödön Téry. The division grew and strengthened over the years, eventually becoming independent as the Hungarian Tourist Association (MTE). Near the place where this association was born, there was a hunting lodge built sixty years earlier by Count Géza Zichy as a hunting farm. In 1926, the MTE bought it from the Esztergom chapter and converted it into a tourist shelter, which started operating in December 1926 with forty beds and was very popular until the war.

After the war, in the 1960s, miners from Dorog rediscovered Klastrompuszta and did a lot to revive it. Hundreds came out to social work, building a lake and a road. Moreover, according to the 1973 Dolgozók Lapja, unrealistic plans emerged to drill through the Pilis and connect the area to the Dobogókő highway, which fortunately never happened. In the 1970s, the Kesztölc council parceled out and designated Klastrompuszta as a holiday area. The tourist house operated intermittently until the political change in 1989, when the Pilis State Forest Enterprise rented it out and it became the Kakukk guesthouse. Relations between the tenants and the re-established Hungarian Tourist Association deteriorated, leading to litigation. As the MTE reported in 1998, the acquisition of the operating (rental) rights of the Klastrompuszta house was only temporary success, as it became private property through a sudden, unclear privatization. The excellently situated tourist house operated until 2004 and can now only be viewed from outside.

After this sad detour, back to the tour. So the start point is located in the Bermuda triangle of the former monastery, the old tourist house, and the leveled public well. To leave Klastrompuszta, follow the Z+ marked hiking trail that also carries the S marking, heading toward Esztergom. In the forest, the path soon bends under the Klastrom cliffs, with the white rock walls peeking through the trees. The walk quickly turns into a breath-catching climb, as you have to get to the top of the cliffs somehow. At the right turning Z▲ the breathing can be calmer; there is no need to go higher.

The Z▲ marking leads to the Chimney rock, but if there are more people there than a calm observer or meditating hiker would like, fifty meters before the marked hiking trail, another unmarked path leads to a similarly nice rock platform. The best is to visit both and recline to enjoy the space, the view, the silence, and the sunshine at length.

From the viewpoints, the tour continues on the Z+ marking until it flows into the P marked hiking trail coming from the Pilis saddle (north). On the P starts a slow descent into the valley under the left-leaning Csévi cliffs. The Csévi cliffs differ from the neighboring Klastrom cliffs in that their position is not southern but western, and the viewpoint is not on top but on the side, equipped with caves.

Turn left onto the less steep section of the PΩ marked path leading to the caves; from there, initially a gentler, then steeper climb leads to the cave openings. It is better to start with the more distant Leány cave, as from there it is possible to scramble through a hidden path to the Legény cave without climbing down and stumbling back on the climbs.

Of the cave entrances, the Legény cave is the more spacious. Both entrance halls require a lamp to explore at least to clearly see the corners of the internal parts the size of a living room. On the ceiling of the Legény cave hall, we can observe beautiful dissolved globular stalactites and fossil dripstone flows. From the ceiling of the inner chamber of the Leány cave opens a chimney upward, like a ventilation window, and on the other side, the bats’ sleeping place is visible on the ceiling.

Both caves have a locked iron door that allows access to inner parts, but its key is available only to cavers. The two passages are connected not only to each other but also to other caves inside the mountain, forming together the Ariadne cave system winding for 15 kilometers.

In the mid-1990s, a large-scale rescue operation took place in the cave. In January 1994, 25 cave rescuers worked to bring out 12-year-old Gergő Kajla, who was injured in the Legény cave during caving with classmates and a teacher. The Budapest student broke his left lower leg in two places after stepping badly on a large stone. Due to the leg fracture, he could not crawl back through the narrow clefts like his twenty classmates and teacher with permission. At some point, it was considered to carve out the rock narrowings. Meanwhile, the rescuers’ off-road vehicles got stuck one after another in the beginning snowstorm. Finally, Gergő was wrapped up and dragged through the narrowing on a portable stretcher. Firefighters made a rope ladder and brought him down to the shelter with its help, as reported by the Komárom-Esztergom county's 24 hours at the time.

Today, such a big accident can't happen anymore; in the inner chambers of the caves accessible and walkable for everyone, you can stroll on tamped and flat ground. From the caves, the KΩ marked hiking trail leads directly to the Klastrompuszta “main square,” about one kilometer walk from here. If thirsty or hungry, one can walk to the K marked Oak Tree buffet two hundred meters away, and if it’s not open, theoretically, there is another pressure well in Kígyó street in the houses. Unless that one has also been sawed off already.

(Text: Index.hu)