World's Coolest Caves

Here are some of the Coolest Caves in the world, Check this Out:

Cave of the Crystals, Mexico

Discovered in 2000, the Crystal Cave of Giants is located 1,000 feet underground in the Naica Mine near Chihuahua. Some of its translucent selenite crystal columns reach up to 36 feet long. (Carsten Peter/Speleoresearch & Films/National Geographic Stock)

Waitomo Glowworm Caves, New Zealand

Quarter-inch-long bioluminescent glow-worms that radiate a tiny blue light dangle from the ceiling of these caves deep in the lush, subtropical hills of New Zealand’s North Island. (Courtesy of Waitomo Glowworm Cave)

Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, China

The largest trove of Chinese Buddhist art—2,000-plus sculptures and paintings —is buried within 492 caves dug by monks along a desert cliff face on the ancient Silk Road. (dbimages/Alamy)

Spruce Tree House, Colorado

In the 13th century, Anasazi or Ancestral Puebloans built 120 rooms and eight ceremonial chambers (kivas) in this 216-feet-long and 89-feet-deep cliff dwelling. Groups of 60 to 80 people lived here. (Courtesy of NPS)

Mountain River Cave, Vietnam

It wasn't until 2009 that professional cavers explored the world’s largest cave passage, which stretches for 2.5 miles, reaches more than 600 feet high, and is concealed under dense tropical rain-forest. (Carsten Peter/National Geographic Stock)

Caverns of Sonora: Texas

Sure, these caverns have pink and peach and rose-colored stalagmites and stalactites by the hundreds, but keep your eyes peeled for the rare helictites. These delicate calcite formations grow out from the walls and twist and turn in all directions; they line the Crystal Palace as well as the Christmas Tree Room, Valley of Ice, White Moon Falls, and Palace of the Angels.

Why It’s Cool: Geologic features develop especially slowly here, making the oddly shaped formations more translucent than in most caves.

Ainsworth Hot Springs Resort: British Columbia, Canada

A small hot-springs cavern was enlarged to create a 150-foot-long H-shaped cave filled waist-high with mineral water as hot as 114 degrees. The odorless water naturally drips from the ceiling and down the walls, building stalactites and smooth “flowstone” that’s been colored red, orange, blue, and green by the minerals.

Why It’s Cool: Hot springs in a cave are unusual, but those who really want “cool” can brave the outdoor stream-fed, cold plunge pool that overlooks Kootenay Lake and the Purcell Mountains.

The Hundred Mammoths Cave (Grotte Préhistorique de Rouffignac): France

Ice Age artists near Rouffignac in southwestern France created detailed line drawings and fine engravings of 158 mammoths, still visible on these walls. Sixty-five animals, including ibex, horses, bison, and rhinoceroses, circle the Grand Ceiling. While Paleolithic artists who painted cave walls and ceilings often had to crawl on their bellies through low passages, modern-day visitors can arrive in style: an electric train makes the half-a-mile trip into the hillside.

Why It’s Cool: The “bearded anthropomorphic figure” is one of the few human likenesses in Ice Age caves.

Painted Cave on Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park:California

One look at the red, orange, and green rocks, lichen, and algae, and it’s easy to see how this sea cave—one of the largest and deepest in the world—got its name. The most frequent visitors are brown pelicans, shearwaters, oystercatchers, Xantus’s murrelets, harbor seals, and sea lions, whose barks resound off the cavernous walls.

Why It’s Cool: Kayak tours with Paddle Sports of Santa Barbara paddle a quarter-mile into the emerald-green waters of the ever-narrowing cave—watch out for the waterfall that flows over the entrance in the spring.

Cenote Dos Ojos: Mexico

An ethereal turquoise world greets divers as they float past underwater stalactites and stalagmites illuminated by dramatic shafts of sunlight. Part of the third-largest underwater cave system in the world, the Dos Ojos or “Two Eyes” cenote is two sinkhole entrances to crystal-clear, freshwater-filled caverns in the Yucatán, where cracks in the limestone landscape created a network of caves and sinkholes.

Why It’s Cool: Both “Ojos” are well suited to snorkelers. If you have an open-water certificate, you can dive with a guide fromDos Ojos Scuba Shop (groups of four maximum).

Source & Read More: BBC & Travel + Leisure