The Mendenhall Glacier is a tongue of ice stretching 12 miles from the Juneau Icefield to Mendenhall Lake. At its widest point, the glacier is more than a half mile wide, with ice 300 to 1,800 feet deep. Rising global temperatures have caused the glacier to start melting—it has receded by about two miles since 1958. Water has carved caves into the interior, creating surreal, turquoise-toned worlds whose shapes are ever changing. The caves are spacious cavities in the blue ice.

credit: AER Wilmington DE

Ellora is a site of outstanding cave temples, datable between c. ad 575 and the end of the 9th century, 20 km north of Aurangabad in the Sahyadri Hills, Maharashtra, India. The cave temples and monasteries are excavated out of the vertical face of an escarpment. The 34 caves contain Buddhist Chaityas or halls of worship, and Viharas, or monasteries, Hindu and Jai temples. The Caves not only bear witness to three great religions (Buddhism, Brahminism and Jainism) but they also illustrate the spirit of tolerance, characteristic of ancient India, which permitted these three religions to establish their sanctuaries and their communities in a single place, which thus served to reinforce its universal value.

credit: Travelling Slacker

The Batu Caves are located thirteen kilometers north of the capital city Kuala Lumpur. Caves are one of the most important Hindu religious sites outside of India. Every year hundreds of thousands of Hindu devotees come to climb the grueling 272 steps up to the caverns. The main Batu Cave is known as the Temple Cave or Cathedral Cave. The cave serves as a Hindu Temple devoted to Lord Muragan whose 42 meter high gold statue stands guard outside.

credit: Christian Haugen

The caves are natural monuments in state ownership. Lot of them consits of rich and unique decoration. The Demänovská Cave of Freedom is unique with variety of stalactite formations of all types. Apart from white stalactites, we can find here also yellow, pink, red and even purple stalactites. The Demanovská Cave of Freedom is located in Demänovská Valley on the northern side of the Low Tatras Mountains. The cave is 8126 m long and 120 m deep.