Baiyu Shaft

Baiyu Shaft

Baiyu Shaft

Baiyu Shaft is located on the southern side of the Beipan River, 5 kilometers to the right of Wuyi Bridge on the Shuipan East Line, and is part of the Wumeng Mountain National Geopark. It is a world-rare vertical shaft, reaching a depth of 560 meters, ranking first in the world. From the shaft’s entrance down to a depth of 424 meters, the shaft remains perfectly vertical, allowing a single rope to reach that depth directly, making it the deepest shaft in the world where one can “look up at the sky from the bottom.” Standing beside the shaft and peering into its seemingly “bottomless” abyss is an awe-inspiring and deeply moving experience. Baiyu Shaft is a uniquely formed vertical cave. The area features gently sloping strata, where surface water penetrates overlying non-carbonate rock layers, forming unsaturated calcium carbonate solutions that dissolve along fractures in the carbonate rock layers. Over time, this dissolution process has carved out these unique vertical caves in the carbonate rock.