Here are some of the most fascinating little known places on Earth!
7 - Huashan Teahouse, China Mount Hua is a mountain located near the city
of Huayin in the Shaanxi province of China.
This five-peaked mountain has a long history of religious significance, being the westernmost
of the five great mountains of China, a group of mountains associated with certain deities
of traditional Chinese religion.
Each of the five peaks holds an ancient Taoist temple, but perhaps the most exciting temple
on this mountain is the Huashan teahouse.
This old temple, which now serves plenty of tea to hikers, sits atop the southern peak,
the highest of them all, standing at 2155 meters or 7070 feet up in the air.
The temple began offering a tea ceremony because of the higher numbers of people attempting
the climb in recent years.
The path to this cup of tea may not be your... cup of tea, though.
You start at a series of steps carved into the mountain, called the "heavenly stairs".
From the top of the stairs you'll take a gondola to the base of the southern peak, where you'll
climb along the sheer cliff face using nothing but a thin path made of wood and metal, driven
into the rocks.
In some places the wood has fallen away, and you're left with nothing but an iron chain
to hold onto.
At the end of this path, you get to climb the face of the cliff, heading nearly straight
up, using toe holds carved directly into the mountain!
For those of you guys who complete this arduous journey, there's a nice, warm kettle waiting
at the top, along with a beautiful view from the highest of the five peaks.
However, plenty of hikers don't make it to the top, and the fastest way down, although
the easiest, isn’t the most pleasant way down!
There are rumours that the fall takes one hundred lives per year, but nobody is willing
to confirm the death toll.
Minor details!
6 - Salar de Tunupa, Bolivia Covering over 4000 square miles, the Salar
de Tunupai is the world's largest salt flat.
Located in Southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andean mountains, this flat was formed
because of transformations between several prehistoric lakes.
It's covered by an extremely flat salt crust, and a pool of brine, containing 50-70% of
the world's currently known lithium resources.
Much of this lithium is being extracted, meaning this place is actually fairly important to
many people in developed countries.
There are other uses for lithium, such as in medicine, or in greases, but let's get
back to the salt flat itself.
The salt ranges from tens of centimeters to a few meters thick, and, since it's so compact,
it's actually possible to drive on the salt!
This has provided the potential for many tourism opportunities, and many hotels sprang up nearby
because of it.
Because of the lack of conventional construction materials, many Hotels are almost entirely
built with salt blocks cut from the Salar!
You wouldn't be crazy to wonder why anyone would want to visit a giant expanse of salt.
During its dry season, it might just be a huge block of white salt, but when the wet
season comes around, you'll basically be walking on a massive mirror.
Salt flats are extremely reflective, similar to ice sheets.
In fact, this salt flat is often used to calibrate distance measurements on satellites, due to
how huge and how reflective it is.
But c’mon, you aren't there to measure distance to some random satellites.
You're there to feel like you're walking on clouds!
The mirror effect is made even more impressive when you stand surrounded by the perfect amount
of water.
If the conditions are just right, the entire flat will act like a huge mirror, leading
to some mind blowing photographs.
If you decide to visit in early November, you'll also get the pleasure of seeing a ton
of flamingos, since three species of flamingos choose the flat as their breeding ground.
Some salt and some flamingoes?
Where else can you get THAT on a vacation?!
5 - Mount Roraima, South America Mount Roraima is a 31 square kilometer plateau,
located in three different countries; Venezuela, Guyana, and Brazil.
As part of Venezuela's Canaima National Park, this mountain is one of the oldest geological
formations on Earth, having been around for somewhere around two billion years.
If that wasn't cool enough, just take a look at the mountain itself.
It’s bounded on all sides by 400 meter tall cliffs, and if you look from far enough away,
it looks like a table.
This led to the name of tabletop mountains for many of the plateaus in this formation.
The mountain itself is of major significance for the indigenous people, being central to
many of their myths and legends.
Since it lies within indigenous territory, it requires special authorization to access
the cliffs for climbing, but luckily there's a hiking route that you can take to reach
the top, from Venezuela.
Once you get to the top, you should expect a few unique animals and plants, and a TON
of rain.
It rains nearly every day on this mountain, so it's pretty wet up there, but the upside
is that it allows this place to have some of the highest waterfalls on Earth.
If you're lucky enough to get up there when the visibility is clear, you'll get some breathtaking
views near the cliffs.
But on the flip side, you’re pretty lucky as well to be up there with near zero visibility,
as you'll get to stand above a massive shroud of fog, making it seem like you're standing
above the clouds!
4 - Antelope Canyon, USA In the southwest part of the US in Arizona,
lies Antelope Canyon, a slot canyon formed in the Navajo Sandstone of the area.
Slot canyons are formed by erosion, caused by water rushing through the rock, and they’re
typically far deeper than they are wide.
Most of these canyons are formed in sandstone or limestone, because of the ease in which
these types of stone will erode.
Because of the way that the water flows, slot canyons often have strange, smoothly shaped
walls, which you wouldn't find anywhere else.
In addition, sandstone settles in layers over a long period of time, so when you go from
top to bottom, the colour changes multiple times on the way down.
Antelope canyon is an amazingly beautiful hiking spot due to this layering of sandstone
and the flowing shapes of the walls.
If you choose to go here, you can decide which of two trails you want to follow.
Upper Antelope Canyon is the most commonly visited section, since there's no climbing
involved to enter or exit.
Also, direct sunlight shines in during certain times of the day in the summer, making for
a great spotlight for tourists to take pictures.
Lower Antelope Canyon gets fewer visitors, since the entrance and exit aren’t at ground
level, meaning you might need to get a little bit sweaty.
Plenty of more dedicated hikers and photographers will still go for the view and the exercise,
and the suggested time to hike here for the best lighting is in the early and late morning.
If you're looking to shed a couple pounds and you wanna have some stunning photos on
your camera roll, be sure to add this canyon hike to your list.
3 - Wisteria Flower Tunnel, Japan Wisteria is a beloved plant in Japan, with
beautiful flowers hanging down from the vines, swaying like wind chimes.
Due to the nature of vines to grow along any structure, they're often seen as a nuisance,
but in certain flower gardens in Japan, they're the main attraction.
Wisteria begins to grow during the spring season, in late April or May, and changes
colour in autumn, like most leaves.
During these times of the year, many wisteria flower gardens are open to the public.
One such garden contains trees older than 100 years.
In the 10,000 square meter area, about 150 trees grow, and their natural beauty is allowed
to shine through.
However, if you're looking for something a little more artistic, Wisteria Tunnels have
been set up through the garden.
Two tunnels of wisteria have been built in this garden, the longest one being 220 meters
long.
Since the flowers hang down from vines, and the vines grow along the tunnel, you can walk
under 220 meters of flowery drapes.
The scent hits you as soon as you enter the garden, but in the tunnel it's even stronger.
When you feel like taking a break, there are wisteria domes and trellises, once again covered
by the flowers, where you can settle down for a packed lunch.
This is a truly beautiful place to visit, but unfortunately for those people with allergies,
hay fever can strike even in the most pleasant places.
2 - Crystal Caves, Mexico
If you wanted to see some of the largest crystals currently known to exist on our planet, you'd
have to take a trip to the Naica Mine in Mexico.
Here, about 300 meters or close to a THOUSAND feet below the surface, you can find massive
selenite crystals.
How massive, you might be asking?
Well, the largest crystal found so far is almost 40 feet in length and 13 feet in diameter,
meaning it's wider than two average human beings are tall!
So how exactly does a crystal that massive form?
Naica is on top of an ancient fault above an underground magma chamber that sits roughly
3 to 5 kilometers beneath the cave.
The magma chamber heats the ground water, which has a huge amount of sulfide ions in
it.
When the saturated groundwater meets the cool surface water, which naturally contains plenty
of oxygen, the oxygen reacts with the sulfide ions, creating sulfates.
These sulfates slowly create the massive crystals, over the course of hundreds of thousands of
years.
The mineral the crystals are made of is actually often mined, and used in various substances,
such as fertilizer, plaster, blackboard chalk, and a few other things, but it's doubtful
that anyone would want to destroy these particular crystals for any of those purposes due to
the amazingness of the crystals!
The cave of the crystals was discovered in 2000, when miners who were there for silver,
zinc, and lead, were drilling through the Naica fault.
They stumbled upon this amazing discovery completely by accident, and scientific teams
have been trying to study the cave since, although there have been some difficulties.
Selenite crystals actually deteriorate in air, so they were attempting to document them
before they were too far gone.
The cave is actually naturally submerged in water, but the pumping operations of the mine
had made it accessible to humans temporarily.
Accessible for a few minutes at a time, that is.
The temperature in the cave is very hot, going up to 58 °Celsius or 136 degrees Fahrenheit
at times, and it has a 90 to 99% humidity.
These two factors mean that people can only go in for about 10 minutes without proper
protective gear, making it rather difficult to explore fully.
Unfortunately, the mining operations stopped in february of 2017, and the cave is now resubmerged.
1 - Mendenhall Ice Caves, Alaska Alaska is that the giant state that lives
up north with Canada, but that makes it the best place in the United States to see a glacier.
The Mendenhall Glacier is a massive field of ice, frequented by tourists.
When visiting Alaska, it's a must-see type of experience, assuming that you plan on going
with a tour guide to avoid falling into a crevice to never be seen again.
This 14 mile long glacier is located in Mendenhall Valley, just a few miles from downtown Juneau
in Southeast Alaska.
At this location you can see plenty of wildlife and foliage, and then a very clear divide
where the ice starts.
Rising temperatures have caused the ice to retreat for the last hundred years, but there
are still many safe trails that can take you onto the ice fields, and depending what time
of year you go, there may be more or less ice.
While you're visiting, you should go on a tour of the Ice Caves, assuming they're stable
that day.
It's pretty rare for them to be closed down, but they're known to cave in under certain
conditions, and the tour guides are trained to know when people can't go in.
We hope they are at least anyways.
Ice caves are pretty much exactly what they sound like.
Caves made of ice.
They can be formed in a variety of ways depending on which glacier you visit, but the Mendenhall
Ice Caves are typically formed as a result of meltwater escaping from the glacier every
year.
The water will find a way out, and the caves are formed similar to how erosion forms canyons,
but much faster.
These caves are pretty cool, and they offer amazing looks into the past that was covered
by the glacier.
You're allowed to travel fairly deep into the caves if the conditions are judged to
be right by the travel guides.
Probably the coolest part about the Ice Caves is that if you come back the next year they
may look completely different.
Many ice caves will freeze up and change during the next years melt, and some won't even be
there anymore, meaning you can visit the glacier every year and still have a new experience.
Here’s what’s next!