Dobšinská ice cave – Dobšinská ľadová jaskyňa
Dobšinská Ice Cave (Dobšinská ľadová jaskyňa) is an ice cave in Slovakia, near the mining town of Dobšiná in the Slovak Paradise. Since 2000 it is included in the UNESCO World Heritage list as a part of Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst site. It lies 130 m above the Hnilec River, and the entrance is at an altitude of 970 m.
The cave was discovered in 1870 by a royal mining engineer, Eugen Ruffinyi though the entrance was known from time immemorial as Studená diera (Cold Hole). The cave was open to the public one year after its discovery. In 1887, it was the first electrically lit cave in Europe.
At about this time 7,171 square meters of the cave’s known area of 8,874 square meters were reported covered with ice. The total ice volume was estimated at 125,000 cubic meters.
The cave floor descends from the entrance which faces North; this results in rapid cooling of the cave in winter as cold air can fall down. On the other hand, the interior is quite protected from the warm environment in summer. Thus the annual temperature average stays around 0°C. The cave iced up, as this cycle repeated for many centuries.
The total length of the cave is 1,483 m (some sources claim 1,232 m), of which 515 m are open to the public from May to September.
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