银河洞

Yinhe Dong

Useful Information

Location:	Suiyang County, Zunyi, Guizhou 563402. (28.2394098, 107.2925678)
Open:	Only after appointment. [2023]
Fee:	. [2023]
Classification:	Karst cave
Light:	all equipment provided
Dimension:
Guided tours:
Photography:	allowed
Accessibility:	no
Bibliography:
Address:	Yinhe Dong.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

1987	beginning of speleological exploration.
MAR-2018	the cave reaches 238 km in length and becomes the longest cave in Asia.
MAY-2023	the cave reaches 400 km in length and becomes the third-longest cave system in the world.
2023	underground Via Ferrata opened to the public.

Description

银河洞 or 阴河洞 (Yínhé dòng) is translated Silver Stream Cave, Galaxy Cave, or better Milky Way Cave. The reason for the name is the fact that the ceiling looks like the Milky Way in the night sky. However, this effect is just stated but not explained, neither glowworms nor the reflection of lamplight in water drops seems very realistic, so we are actually at a loss. Chinese cave descriptions tend to be that way.

What they never fail to explain about this cave is that it has the first Via Ferrata inside a cave in the world. Pretty stupid for a caver, because most cave tours are much tougher than any Via Ferrata. But it seems the development of China has reached a point, where many people have time and money to do such strange stuff for fun. By the way, in Chinese this is named 银河洞飞拉达 (Yínhé dòng fēi lā dá, Galaxy Cave Via Ferrata).

The participants enter a normally dry river cave which is gorge like, quite narrow but very high the passage meanders through the dolomite. Soon it's not possible any more to walk in the river bed, and the climbers switch to a narrow ledge on the right wall. Security ropes are attached to the rock, and so the walk and climb on ledges along the passage, continually ascending. After a final ascent, the passage goes up steeply to a huge cave portal which is used to leave the cave again.

We are not really convinced of the concept, cave trekking always borders on using caves as sports equiment, which is generally despised. The point is that caves are very fragile, and idiots on testosterone who run through regardless of losses are the proverbial "bull in a china shop". However, what we have seen so far has impressed us. The equipment is first class, full cave climbing gear of high quality, pretty new and well-kept. There are very detailed introductions in climbing, cave formation, cave protection, and personal safety before the cave is entered. This is actually a crash course in caving!

This can't be true! There must be a drawback! Yes, there is a pretty big one! Those tours are available only in Chinese, so before learning caving, you must learn Mandarin first.

Galaxy Cave is a part of the Shuanghedong Cave Network (双河洞, shuānghédòng, Twin Rivers Cave), which has become the third-longest cave system on Earth lately [2023]. And it was the longest cave of Asia for several years before [2018]. The whole system contains numerous waterfalls, four major tiankeng, and at least three underground rivers fed by numerous losses and the aquifer. The cave has three major levels, the lowest is the active cave with the cave rivers and resurgences. It has 105 entrances and extends mainly over the district of Suiyang, but also over that of Zheng'an with its northern part. It also has spectacular troglobionts, like tadpoles, frogs, salamanders, insects, spiders, bats, leeches, cave shrimp, and blind fish weighing several pounds. The cave is located in Lower Ordovician and Middle-Upper Cambrian (541 to 443 Ma) dolomitic limestones and lodestones. There are also some layers of gypsum, so there are gypsum caves and gypsum minerals in the limestone caves. The area of the cave system is part of the 双河洞国家地质公园 (Shuāng hé dòng guójiā dìzhí gōngyuán, Shuanghedong National Geopark), which has an area of 318 km².