Scărișoara Ice Cave
An underground glacier in the Apuseni, roughly three and a half thousand years old, reached by a wooden staircase down a shaft.
- How long to allow
- An hour at the cave
- Best for
- Anyone happy with steep stairs and a cold shaft
- Seasonality
- Access depends on conditions and on the mountain road, which is difficult in winter.
The background
Scărișoara holds a block of ice that has been there for millennia. It is not a frozen puddle: it is a genuine cave glacier, formed and maintained by the shape of the shaft above it, which lets cold air fall in and traps it.
Radiocarbon work puts the ice at roughly three and a half thousand years old. Published figures for its exact age and volume differ between sources, so the round number is the honest one.
Getting down
You enter through a wide collapse shaft and descend by a wooden staircase into the cold. The temperature difference from the surface in summer is abrupt, and the steps are wet.
It sits high in the Apuseni, on mountain roads that are slow in good weather and a real question in bad. Treat it as the object of a day rather than a stop on the way to something else.
Prefer to have the route organised for you?
Guided private trips and custom itineraries are arranged externally, with a local driver-guide.
View private tours