The cleft rock („Klobenstein“) and chapel (“Maria Klobenstein”)
According to an old legend, the chapel “Maria Klobenstein” was consecrated out of gratitude for Saint Mary.
The story goes, that once upon a time an old farmer’s wife was ranging the woods, when a direful thunderstorm approached, pelting with rain, threatening her to drown in a mudflow.
To make all matters worse, she suddenly heard a frightening rumbling noise and saw a huge rock come crashing down straight towards her.
In her agony and helplessness she prayed fervently to Saint Mary.
The wonder happened: the rock burst and split in halves, stopping just before her.
She was saved.
Until the day today, many visitors try to walk through the gap in the rock without touching the stone, because, as the legend has it, if you manage to do so, your heart’s greatest desire will come true, given it is not a material wish and you keep
it unsaid.
Following this ritual is especially very popular amongst bridal couples as a good omen for their love and matrimony to last forever.
It also came to happen, that a little well rose below the rock, regarded by our ancestors as another Sign from God, particularly as the water from this well is said to cure eye complaints.
Over times, both the cleft rock and the well attracted more and more pilgrims, which finally led to the little chapel being built in the beginning of the 18th century as a place to pray and rest.
The supervision of the chapel was granted to a hermit, who resided below (where the restaurant is located today) and who also had the permission to serve pilgrims with food.
The geological history of the Klobenstein and its surroundings
It is about 10.000 years since the last ice age came to an end.
Experts call this the “Würmeiszeit” (Würm glacial stage) or last glacial epoch.
The giant glacier, which had shaped the whole area far into the Chiemgau over a period of more than 115.000 years, slowly recessed, while its melting waters filled the Chiemsee, which in those days covered about three-times the expanse as of today and its shoreline reached all the way to Marquartstein.
Over the following ages, sediment transportation from the “Großache/Tiroler Achen” shrinked the Chiemsee into the size it has today.
Around Klobenstein the recessing glacier left behind a significant number of glacial potholes or (glacier) “mills”…
During the glaciers lifetime of thousands of years, a certain amount of ice would regularly melt during warmer periods. These melting waters flooded through crevasses down to the bottom of the glacier where they encountered the bedrock.
Sometimes these floodings created so-called glacier mills, where waters would rush down with stream velocities of up to 200 km/h.
Since the falling waters at the same time would rotate like mills, they were called glacier mills. The particles of sand and gravel they carried washed out the bedrock over many thousands of years into their present perfectly circular shape: the glacial potholes, also called “mills”.
To cut a long story short, a giant glacier created this amazing piece of nature, that takes our breath today, including the “Entenlochklamm” (literally: “duck hole canyon”), which marks the border between Bavaria (Germany) and Tyrol (Austria) and for many centuries has been an important connection, both a trading and a smuggling route, between the two countries.
A little funfact about the “Entenlochklamm”:
It used to be so narrow and tight, you would be able to cross it if you only fell some larger trees to use as a “bridge”.
Only approx.100 years ago it was decided to extend the passage by blasting parts of the canyon where you today find the suspension bridge leading to the Klobenstein Chapel.
