Chongqing · Holes Where the Cave Roof Came Down
Wulong Karst (武隆喀斯特)
A farmed limestone plateau in eastern Chongqing with enormous holes in it. The holes are collapsed caves, the famous natural bridges are the stretches of roof that did not fall, and people grow vegetables on the rim.
Quick Facts
The Short Version
| What it is | A karst plateau cut by collapse pits and gorges, with three natural rock bridges spanning one of them |
|---|---|
| Where | Wulong, in the east of Chongqing municipality, on the Wujiang river |
| Listed | Part of the UNESCO South China Karst property |
| How the bridges formed | A cave system collapsed. The bridges are the sections of roof left standing between the holes |
| What you walk | Down into the pits on paved paths and steps, under the bridges, and along the floor between them |
| The other half | A show cave and a second scenic area on the same plateau, ticketed separately |
| Who else is here | A great many domestic visitors. The site has been used by international film and by Chinese television, which is why |
| Time needed | A full day for the bridges. Two with the cave and the second area |
Why Go
A Cave With the Roof Off
1. The bridges are what did not collapse
Start with the holes rather than the bridges, because the holes came first. Water moving through limestone dissolves it along joints and bedding planes and hollows out passages, and in a plateau this thick the passages get very large. A roof over a large enough void cannot carry itself indefinitely. It comes down, and what is left at the surface is a pit with vertical pale walls and a floor of its own rubble, now grown over with forest.
The bridges are the sections of roof that did not come down. They are not arches cut by a river through a spur, which is what a natural bridge usually is elsewhere; they are the surviving lintels between two collapses. The picture at the top of this page shows the same logic in miniature: a wedge of rock with vertical walls on both sides, standing between two pits, with a small pavilion built on top of it.
The evidence is still visible at ground level. One of the pictures below shows a pit walled by pale cliffs with a dark cave mouth at the base of the far wall. That is the passage the collapse did not reach, running on into the rock. Walk the floor of these pits and you are walking inside a cave that lost its ceiling.
2. The holes are in somebody’s farmland
The other thing the aerial makes plain is that this is not a wilderness. The plateau surface is ordinary working country: fields of green crop and bare red earth, vegetable plots, fish ponds, farmhouses with blue metal roofs, lanes and power lines. The pits are simply in the middle of it, and in several of these pictures the edge of a two-hundred-metre hole runs within a few metres of a cabbage bed.
That is worth holding onto because it is the opposite of how the place is usually photographed. The standard image is a bridge from below, framed to exclude everything modern. What the plateau actually looks like is farms with a chasm in them, which is both more interesting and more useful for understanding how people have lived on karst: the flat ground is farmed, the holes are unusable, and the two have coexisted for a very long time.
The crowds have a specific cause. Part of a Hollywood film was shot in these pits, and a popular Chinese television programme used the second scenic area on the same plateau as a location. Neither fact tells a visitor anything about limestone, and both explain why the paths are full.
The catch. Everything here is down and then up again: the pits are entered by long flights of steps or a lift, and the return climb is the part people underestimate. The site is busy, the route through the bridges is one-way and can become a slow-moving queue, and several of the attractions on the plateau are separately ticketed with transfers between them. It is also a long way from Chongqing city for a day trip, and the weather in this part of the province is cloudy and damp for much of the year.
Orientation
Down, Along, and Up
The main site is entered from the plateau and descended: a lift or a long flight of steps takes you to the floor of the first pit, a paved route runs along the bottom under the bridges from one collapse to the next, and you come out at the far end. It is one-way, which keeps the traffic moving and means there is no turning back once committed.
The show cave and the second scenic area are elsewhere on the plateau with their own gates and their own transfers. Anyone with one day should do the bridges and treat the rest as a second visit rather than trying to compress them.
Practical
Things Worth Knowing
Take the lift down if it is running
The descent is long. Saving your legs for the climb out at the far end is the better trade.
Go early
The route through the pits is one-way and single file in places, and it fills from mid morning.
Expect damp
The floors of the pits hold moisture, the steps are wet, and this is a cloudy part of the province.
Decide in advance about the cave
It is a separate ticket and a separate journey on the plateau, and it will not fit into an afternoon that also includes the bridges.
Timing
When to Go
| Season | The case for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| April to June | Green, with water running in the pits and comfortable temperatures underground | Wet. Cloud sits on this plateau for days at a time |
| September and October | The clearest air of the year and the most reliable light down in the pits | The first week of October fills the one-way route completely |
| July and August | Cool at the bottom when Chongqing city is unbearable, which is why domestic visitors come | The peak of the season, and the pits are crowded |
| November to March | Quiet, cheap and atmospheric with mist in the chasms | Cold, wet underfoot, and short days leave little light at the bottom |
Context
Living on Limestone
South China sits on one of the great limestone regions of the world, and the same rock produces very different landscapes depending on how much it has been lifted and how deeply rivers have cut into it. Where the surface is low and the towers stand in a plain, you get the scenery of Guangxi. Where the block has been pushed up high and the rivers have sawn down through it, as here, you get a plateau with gorges and holes.
Both are on the same UNESCO listing, which treats the karst of the south as a single serial property with components chosen to show different stages and forms. That is a useful way to read this site: it is not competing with the river-and-tower photographs from further south, it is the other end of the same process.
What gets less attention is the human arithmetic. Karst drains internally, so a plateau like this has thin soil, little surface water and a great deal of unusable ground, and the farms on the rim in these pictures are working a landscape that gives up very little. The pits themselves were obstacles for most of history and became assets in the last twenty years. The lift, the paved route and the ticket office are what turned a hole in somebody’s field into the reason the county is on a map.
Nearby
Other Stops on the Same Trip
Spot · about 250 km east
Tenglong Cave (腾龙洞)
An enormous cave system in western Hubei, and the version of this rock that has not collapsed.
Spot · about 250 km east
Enshi Grand Canyon (恩施大峡谷)
The same uplifted limestone, cut into towers and a gorge.
Spot · about 400 km northeast
The Three Gorges Dam (三峡大坝)
Downstream on the Yangtze, at Yichang.
Where to Base
Chongqing (重庆)
Chongqing is the gateway and is a destination in its own right: a mountain city stacked on a peninsula between two rivers, with a hotpot culture that is taken very seriously. The site is a few hours east by road or rail.
There is accommodation in Wulong town and near the scenic area, which is the sensible choice for anyone wanting to be at the gate early or to do the cave on a second day. Treating the whole thing as a day trip from the city spends most of it travelling.
Experiences
What You Can Actually Do Here
On site · one day
The bridges from below
Down into the pits, along the one-way route under all three bridges, and out at the far end.
On site · one day
The cave and the second area
The show cave and the other scenic area on the plateau, which need their own day.
Guided · 5 days
Karst, high and low
This plateau and the cave country to the east, read against the tower karst of the south so that the same rock explains two different landscapes.
Look up, then look at the rim. The bridges overhead are the parts of a cave roof that held, the pits you are standing in are the parts that did not, and two hundred metres above your head somebody is growing vegetables a few paces from the edge. That combination is the reason this place is worth the drive, and it is the half that the postcards leave out.
Eastern Chongqing, Underground and Over
This site is usually sold as one photograph from the bottom of a pit. Tell us your dates and our local team will get you in before the one-way route fills, add the cave as a proper second day, and put the plateau farming in front of you as well as the rock.