兴隆县溶洞

Xionglong Cave - Xinglong Cave - Yanshan Crystal Palace


Useful Information

Location: Taijiatai Village, Shuiquan Village, Xiong Long County. Xinglong National Geopark.
Open: All year daily 8:30-17.
[2020]
Fee: Adults CNY 115.
[2020]
Classification: SpeleologyKarst cave
Light: LightIncandescent Electric Light System
Dimension: Ar=5,000 m².
Guided tours: Ar=2,700 m².
Photography: allowed
Accessibility: no, many steps
Bibliography:
Address: Xionglong Cave, Taojiataicun, Xinglong, Chengde, Hebei.
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
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History

MAY-2002 discovered by two locals, Tao Mpu and Zang Mou.
MAR-2003 opened to the public.

Description

兴隆县溶洞 (Xionglong Cave) is a rather new show cave, with many pure white speleothems. The spelethems are very well preserved, and besides stalactites and stalagmites there are rimstone pools, disques and cave coral. The light is - quite exceptional for Chinese show caves - mostly white, which makes the visit rather pleasant. Even Chinese visitors note this in forums. Also it is a rather small cave, which is typical for the northern location, northeast of Beijing.

Quite exceptional is that the cave was named after the county where it is located. Its actual name is Xionglong County Cave.

The most exceptional speleothems of the cave are the huge shield with a diameter of almost 2 m, and the calcite bubble which look like broke shells of a chicken egg. However, the chinese descriptions are quite annoying babbling about 70 different landscapes (inside the cave!) and 59 types of speleothems named cake, hanging ball, and two color waterfall. The strangest bit is that the cave is 1 to 1.4 Billion years old and still grows. Such nonsense seems to be quite common in chinese caves, you can either lough or cry about it. And sky saucers, vertical mirrors, fried eggs, and stone penises are actually funny. But why they give the size of the cave in square meters is ominous.

At least we found a version of the cave discovery which seems to be more or less accurate. In May 2002 two villagers from nearby Yao Jiatai, Tao Mou and Zhang Mou were hunting. They discovered a hole they had never seen before and were curious and Tao Mou went inside to have a look. The first 10 m were a crawl, but then the cave widened and his cheap gas lighter was not good enough to see. But they knew about the cave now and told the story about their discovery. Soon the cave was explored by others and it took only a year until the cave was opened as a show cave. The best bit (we actually couldn't believe it) the two get a 1% share of the tourist revenue for their discovery.

The cave was soon examined by researchers from the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the China Landscape Geology Research and Consulting Center-