Entrance shaft
Metal stairs.
Țetcu Mircea Rareș — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Țetcu Mircea Rareș — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Țetcu Mircea Rareș — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Țetcu Mircea Rareș — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Mpdus — CC BY-SA 4.0
Scărișoara Cave is one of the largest ice caves in the Apuseni Mountains of the western Romanian Carpathians, about 69 km southwest of Cluj-Napoca in a straight line. It counts among Romania's natural wonders and has been described as a glacier cave. The Austrian geographer Arnold Schmidl first mentioned it in 1863 and drew the first map, and the Romanian scientist Emil Racoviță explored it between 1921 and 1923. Its ice is estimated to be about 3,500 years old, with a volume of some 75,000 cubic metres and up to 20 metres thick in places. The cave lies at about 1,150 metres and is 120 metres deep and 720 metres long. Visitors descend a 60-metre-wide, 50-metre-deep entrance shaft on metal stairs into the Great Hall, about 108 metres long, where an ice cliff nearly 18 metres tall overlooks a frozen pool. Passages lead on to other chambers, one of them holding more than 100 ice stalagmites. Visitors walk wooden walkways over the ice among the white formations, and the tourist section stays around 0 °C all year. Bring warm clothes and non-slip shoes, even in summer.
Metal stairs.
An ice cliff.
Over 100.
Apuseni Mountains, Alba County, Romania
Warm clothes and non-slip shoes.
Around 0 °C all year.