Koppenbrüller Cave

In a 19th century guide book Koppenbrüller Cave is described as a “renowned show cave”. Since no show cave operation is recorded at that time it may consequently be assumed that locals took interested travellers to the cave. The famous Dachstein explorer Friedrich Simony, too, inspected the deeper portions of the cave several times.

Koppenbrüller Cave is geologically the “youngest” of the three caves and is the perfect “showplace” to demonstrate Dachstein underground streams. Passageways, safe from floods, provide access, also in case of bad weather. Starting at the Koppenrast-inn a 15 minutes’ walk on a convenient footpath leads along the Koppentraun River to the cave entrance.

The cave entrance itself is a karst spring opening, forming flows of high volume in periods of heavy rainfall or thaw whereas the inside of the cave is dominated by year-round underground streams.
During the 1 hour tour visitors learn about the formation of the cave and at snow melting and heavy rainfall periods they may even experience how the dry stream bed underneath the “Simony Hall” swells and turns into a powerful torrent.

After traversing the “Hall of Collapse” and the “Hanna Gorge” the visitors will get to the source of the cave stream, the “Bocklake”.  On the way back dripstones and other calcite speleothems, such as flowstones formed in the course of centuries, as well as Art University-installations provide extraordinary experience.