Stepping into the magical underground caves, you'll be greeted by a dazzling array of stalactites and stalagmites, intricately shaped and seemingly crafted by supernatural forces. Here, you'll discover natural wonders and spectacles you've never seen before. The caves of Hebei await your exploration.
1. Yugu Cave
Yugu Cave, located in the Yesanpo Scenic Area of Baoding City, is a natural underground palace. The cave's interior features a myriad of landscapes, with varying heights and depths, creating a stunning and colorful underground gallery that is rare in northern China. It has earned the reputation of being a "paradise on earth."
Over millions of years, Yugu Cave has gradually formed five layers, each with its own unique and peculiar scenery. Caves within caves, interconnected and mysterious, create an enchanting and unpredictable atmosphere.
2. Kongshan Baiyun Cave
Situated in Lincheng County, Xingtai City, Kongshan Baiyun Cave is one of the most famous caves in Hebei Province. It is a rare karst cave landscape in northern China, developed in the Cambrian limestone of the Paleozoic era, dating back about 500-513 million years. The cave maintains a constant temperature of around 17°C throughout the year, making it cool in summer and warm in winter, enticing visitors to linger.
The stalactites in Baiyun Cave have developed along fractures, forming densely distributed solution pores and cavities, resembling the characteristics of Taihu stones with their transparency, leakage, thinness, and wrinkles. The stone flowers, stone pillars, stone pipes, stalactites, stone curtains, stone waterfalls, and colorful stone mantles here are diverse, unique, and the most typical and representative in terms of abundance, density, and variation. Experts have dubbed it an "underground maze."
3. Xinglong Cave
Xinglong Cave, located in Xinglong County, Chengde City, has a discovered cave area of more than 5,000 square meters, with five branch caves also found. Xinglong Cave is a large limestone cave that has been developing for 1 billion to 1.4 billion years and is still growing. It is a typical seepage zone cave and a typical slow diffusion calcium carbonate deposition.
The calcium carbonate deposits in the cave are complete in type, beautiful in landscape form, and large in volume. The cave's interior features are characterized by their original colors and appearances, crystal clarity, exquisite collection, and rare treasures, hence the name "Yanshan Crystal Palace."
4. Julong Cave
Julong Cave is located in Quyang County, Baoding City. It was named Julong Cave because it resembles a long dragon. One day in 1989, villagers from Quyang County accidentally dropped a steel drill into the mountain while quarrying stones, inadvertently discovering a 30,000-year-old secret. The cave varies in width and meanders.
During the excavation of Julong Cave, a 10-meter-thick cultural deposit layer was unexpectedly discovered, including the remains of ancient ape-men's lives. This was the first discovery of an ape-man cave in Hebei Province. The ancient ape-man site and the natural cave are integrated, making it unique in China.
Julong Cave is about 2,800 meters long, with more than a hundred scenic spots and over a thousand landscapes inside. The Julong Grand Hall is the main part of the cave, and the landscapes are characterized by their divinity, wonder, marvel, and unparalleled beauty, resembling a magnificent and splendid underground palace carved from gems, coral, and jade.
5. Ziyun Mountain
In the Ziyun Mountain Scenic Area of Pingshan County, Shijiazhuang, there is a cloud cave, which is the biggest attraction of Ziyun Mountain in Pingshan County. It is a naturally formed cave with purple clouds lingering in front of it, and various shapes of stalactites and stone pillars inside.
The cave features caves within caves, interconnected and winding, wide enough to accommodate hundreds of people in some places, while narrow enough for only one person to pass through sideways in others. The various stalactite formations are peculiar, diverse, and lifelike, resembling an underground palace, giving people a sense of being in a dreamlike, heavenly realm.
Translator: TANG Yuxin
Reviewer: WEN Min
