Scărișoara Ice Cave

High in the Apuseni mountains, a great shaft opens in the limestone and drops into a chamber that holds one of the largest underground ice blocks in Europe: a body of ice tens of metres thick whose deepest layers have been dated to several thousand years old, preserved because the shaft traps cold air and never lets it out. Wooden stairs descend into the mouth of the pit, where the temperature falls sharply within a few steps, and a viewing platform looks out over the ice floor and, in the colder months, a forest of ice stalagmites rising from it. Beyond the tourist section lie reserved galleries open only to researchers. The cave sits in a beautiful and largely undeveloped stretch of the Apuseni, a landscape of scattered mountain farms, gorges and other caves that repays a couple of days.

History

The Austrian geographer Arnold Schmidl first described and mapped the cave in 1863, and Emil Racoviță explored it between 1921 and 1923 and wrote about its origin in his Speologia of 1927. The ice is thought to have formed 3,500 years ago (Wikipedia, Scărișoara Cave).

The landscape

• The ice floor - the great block of ancient ice at the bottom of the shaft.
• The ice stalagmites - the columns that form in the colder half of the year.
• The entrance shaft - the descent by wooden stairs into the cold pit.
• The Apuseni around it - the gorges, farms and other caves of the range.

When to go

June to September is the accessible season, when the mountain road is passable and the walk in is easy; the ice formations are actually most impressive in late winter and spring, but access is much harder then. It is genuinely cold inside at any time of year, so bring a warm layer even in August.

Before you go

The access road up from the valley is rough and steep and can defeat a low car, so check conditions or go with local transport. The visit itself is short, essentially a descent to a viewing platform, and those expecting a long cave walk will find it brief. It is properly cold and the wooden stairs are damp and slippery. The surrounding Apuseni, though, justify the journey on their own.

Nearby

The Apuseni's gorges and the Bears' Cave are within reach; Alba Iulia's citadel lies to the south.

Key facts