The Eternal Ice Cave

The Eternal Ice Cave

The Eternal Ice Cave is a national AAAA-level tourist attraction and a national geopark.

The Eternal Ice Cave is located in Madigou Village, Chunjingwa Township, 50 kilometers west of Ningwu County, adjacent to a tourist route at an altitude of 2,300 meters. After on-site investigation by cave experts from the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was determined that this cave formed during the Quaternary Glacial Period of the Cenozoic era, approximately three million years ago—hence the name "Eternal Ice Cave." Its uniqueness lies in the fact that, under the local climatic conditions, the environment should not support ice formation at all, yet the cave remains frozen all year round. Even in the peak of summer, when the outside world is lush with green grass and blooming flowers, the cave remains icy and frigid, with ice sculptures everywhere. Moreover, the deeper you go underground, the thicker the ice layers become, forming a stark contrast to the normal geological pattern where temperatures increase with depth.

Experts have stated that this ice cave ranks first among only nine ice caves out of more than ten thousand caves across China. It has the strongest cooling mechanism and the largest ice reserves, with currently around one hundred meters developed for tourism. It is divided into five levels, and visitors can access each level by walking through ice tunnels, descending ice staircases, and crossing ice walkways. Each level can accommodate dozens of people. The widest part of the cave spans a diameter of 20

meters, while the narrowest is over 10 meters. The cave walls are entirely made of ice. Formations such as ice pillars, ice curtains, ice waterfalls, ice flowers, ice Buddhas, ice beds, ice bells, ice figures, and ice bodhisattvas are fantastically varied. The various sights inside the cave—whether delicate and translucent, sparkling and dazzling, graceful and elegant, or grand and majestic—are all breathtaking. It is truly a world of ice.