Kolowrathhöhle

Gamslöcher-Kolowrath-System

Useful Information

photography — View from the entrance of Kolowrathhöhle. Public Domain.

Location:	A10 exit Salzburg Süd, through Grödig, turn left to Glanegg, towards Fürstenbrunn, at rightturn follow unpaved road straight ahead. From the Rosittenparkplatz use the Dopplersteig, ascent to the cave 1,000 m. Some 2 hours walk. (47.7279107, 13.0085677)
Open:	No restrictions. [2025]
Fee:	free. [2025]
Classification:	Karst Cave Ice Cave cave with a view.
Light:	bring torch
Dimension:	L=36,000 m, VR=570 m, A=1,500 m asl.
Guided tours:	self guided
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:	Eberhard Fugger (1888): Beobachtungen in den Eishöhlen des Untersberges bei Salzburg, Salzburg 1888. pdf Walter Klappacher, Karl Mais (1999): Ice Cave studies in Salzburg and the work of Eberhard Fugger 1842-1919, Slovensky Kras XXXVII, Liptovsky Mikulas 1999, pp. 115-130.
Address:	Kolowrathhöhle
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1842 or 1845	discovered by herders.
1846	documented by the lithographs of Beda Weinmann.
1849	lithograph "Gletscher in der Kolowrats-Höhle" by Georg Pezolt.
1866	cave accident, wooden bridge collapses, the Bavarian minister Freiherr von Lerchenfeld and other die.
1870	cave developed.
1876	trail to the cave entrance built.
1913	visited by Alexander von Mörk.

Description

F090-023 — Kolowrathhöhle. Public Domain.

The Kolowrathhöhle is a historic cave, used to be a show cave, but today visiting it is not only quite strenuous, it has also become dangerous, or at least difficult. Good mountaineering skills and physical fitness are required. Suitable clothing, a helmet, good lamps and possibly ice skates should also be brought along. We strongly advise against visiting the cave unprepared, all safety rules that should be observed for undeveloped caves apply here. Go in a group, leave your destination and return time, take the necessary equipment with you. Now you may be wondering why we list such a difficult cave at all, since showcaves.com is actually for tourist caves. Well, one aspect was that we have the opportunity to warn about the dangers of visiting the cave. Unfortunately, there are many webpages on the internet that do not do this. And secondly, this is actually a former show cave and of great historical importance.

The cave is known for a long time, the discovery happened either in 1842 or 1845 by the Sennner (herder) of the obere Rosittenalpe and the Sennerin of the Firmianalpe. The story is documented by Eberhard Fugger, who was the first to explore and document the ice caves of the Alps. The cave became almost immediately popular, visitors of the area also went to the cave, numerous sketches and engravings were created. There are fine lithographs by Beda Weinmann from 1846 and a lithography named "Gletscher in der Kolowrats-Höhle" from 1849 published by Georg Pezolt. Soon almost every guidebook to the area mentioned the cave.

The high number of visitors resulted in a spectacular accident in 1866. The cave had been developed with wooden staircases, which soon became rotten. A group of visitors used the staircase which collapsed. One of the visitors was Freiherr von Lerchenfeld, a Bavarian minister, who was badly hurt and died a few days later. As a result, the cave was officially developed in 1870, financed by Franz Anton Graf Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky who was Ministerpräsident (president) of Austria at this time. The cave was then named after him. In 1876 the development was completed by the creation of a path to the cave entrance, which was created using dynamite. The entrance was widened several times, but this resulted in a bad influence on the level of the ice in the cave. So the ice was dramatically reduced long before the global warming.

The specialty of this cave is the ice inside. Like many caves in the Alps, in an area where the average temperature is around the freezing point, this cave has ice in the entrance area. The entrance is high up, then the cave goes down, a classical cold trap. The earliest lithographs show visitors with redingote, cylinder, and torches, and an impressive amount of ice. In the second half of the 19th century this huge amount of ice was used for ice skating during summer. There were festivals organized inside the cave. A few decades ago, the cave still had around 2,000 m² of ice on the floor of the entrance hall. In recent years, this has continued to decrease; after a particularly mild winter, the ice patch was only 1 x 2 metres in size, after colder winters it is perhaps 10 m in diameter.

To visit the cave, you best start at the Rosittenparkplatz. Here starts the Dopplersteig, a trail leading to the Dopplerwand. At the foot of the Dopplerwand the trail to the cave branches off. The height difference between the parking lot and the cave entrance is about 1,000 m, so it depends mainly on your phyiscal how fast you reach the cave. Normal visitors should plan an ascent of two hours. So actually a visit of this cave is a day trip, you need time for ascent, cave visit, and descent. Some pauses and probably time to change clothes after the visit easily sum up to about six hours. Take something to eat and drink with you, use sun protection, and be careful to visit the cave between one hour after sunrise and two hours before sundown, because during night there are hunters in the area.

The Dopplersteig is a via ferrata up the Dopplerwand. It requires mountaineering and climbing skills and appropriate equipment. In the lower part of this cliff, right at the Dopplersteig are various cave entrances which are interconnected. They are called Gamslöcher. During the exploration of Kolowrathhöhle and Gamslöcher a connection was discovered, so they are actually two entrances of the same cave system. The whole cave system is more than 16 kilometers long and ery difficult. There have been several tragic accidents during the exploration. Please be very careful how far you go inside the cave. We recommend noot to leave the once developed part of the ice cave, whiich is more or less the entrance hall. The trail to the cave entrance is not maintained any more and the climatic conditions on the mountain cause a fast deterioration. So please be careful when visiting the cave. Bring warm clothes, the temperature inside is almost freezing point.