Mountain River Cave, Vietnam


There’s really only one way down to the entrance of one of the largest caves in the world. And it involves you, a rope, and an 80-meter drop. Aſt er hiking through dense forest for 36 hours, you can hardly say no. T is is the cave that you traveled so far to explore. You’re in Vietnam, about to enter Hang Son


Doong, or “mountain river cave.” T e cave contains a network of about 150 caves. Inside is a large, fast-fl owing river. T is cave system has its own lake and even a hidden jungle! T ough first explored in 2009, the cave


was formed millions of years ago. T at’s when river water began fl owing into cracks in the limestone. Over time, the water eroded a giant tunnel beneath the mountain range above it. It’s hard to describe the scale of this cave.


Some of its caverns are big enough to contain an entire city street. T e deeper you go, the darker it gets until the darkness is total.


You feel very small as you stumble along the


uneven ground. T e sound of the raging river echoes off the cave walls. Ahead, you can see light. In places where the limestone above was weak, the ceiling collapsed, forming sinkholes. T is created gigantic skylights in the cave. Now it feels as if you are in an open forest,


not at the bottom of a deep cave. Sunlight shines down through a wide opening in the rock. Dark, leafy plants surround you. It’s like an underground jungle. Colorful birds swoop down then soar upward toward the opening. To cover the length of this cave, you’ll need


to walk for more than 4 kilometers, ducking in and out of the sunlit chambers. You’ll see some of the world’s tallest stalagmites. You’ll see cave pearls, too. T ese lumps of calcium salts are typically marble-size. But here, they are the size of baseballs. Much of this cave has yet to be explored. What secrets lie ahead?


cave: a naturally formed opening in Earth’s surface that is usually big enough for a person to enter


glacier: a huge mass of ice that moves slowly over land


limestone: a kind of rock that is formed over time mainly from layers of tiny sea animals and plants


sinkhole: a depression or hole in the ground caused by the ground collapsing into a chamber below


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