Scărişoara Cave
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Scărişoara Cave (Romanian: Peştera Scărişoara) is one of the biggest ice caves in the Romanian part of Carpathians, more specifically in Apuseni.
The exact date when the cave was discovered is unknown, but is mentioned in 1863 by the german Adolf Schmidl, who made some observation and the first map. Emil Racoviţă mentioned this cave and how it was born in his work Speleology, which appeared in 1927. According to the scientist Emil Pop, the ice cave was born 3500 years ago, during the glaciations, when these mountains were covered by snow and ice.
The cave is located at and an altitude of 1165m above sea level. The cave is 105m deep and 720m long, the entrance shaft (50m in diameter and 48m in depth) giving access through metal stairs to large chamber (108m long, 78m wide) - The Big Hall. From this point three openings lead to The Curch (in front, with over 100 stalagmites), Great Reservation, Coman Gallery (left) and Little Reservation (right). The part that tourists can visit includes the entrance shaft, The Big Hall and The Church, the other chambers being reserved for scientists (and can be visited only with the agreement of the Speological Institute of Cluj-Napoca. The volume of the ice is (75000 m³) and it is 26m high. The temperature is up to +1°C in the summer and down to -7°C in the winter. In the part for tourists the average temperature is around 0°C.
Bats live in the ice cave, as do small bugs (2-3 mm) called Pholeuon prozerpinae glaciale. In the Big Reservation a Rupicapra skeleton was discovered.
 The Church |
 Stalagmite from the The Church |
