Jingpo Lake
UNESCO Global Geopark And National Scenic Area; The Largest Lava Dammed Lake In China, With The Diaoshuilou Waterfall And The Collapsed Crater Underground Forest · Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang
About five thousand years ago lava poured out of the volcanic field north of here, ran into the valley of the Mudan River and set, and the river backed up behind it into a lake ninety-five kilometres long - the largest lava-dammed lake in China and one of the largest anywhere. Where the water finds its way over the old lava lip it drops about twenty metres into a round plunge pool as the Diaoshuilou falls, which in a wet September is a wall of water forty metres across and in a dry spring can be a disappointing trickle, and in deep winter freezes into a blue cliff of ice. Local men dive into the pool from the rim, which is a daily spectacle and an entirely genuine risk. North of the lake the same eruption left craters that later collapsed, and mature forest now grows a hundred metres down inside them - an underground forest you look into from above.
Jingpo Lake, Ning'an, Mudanjiang, Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang, China
Open daily, generally around 8:00-17:30 with shorter winter hours; a scenic area ticket covers the lake and waterfall, THE UNDERGROUND FOREST AND CRATER AREA IS USUALLY A SEPARATE TICKET, and the internal shuttle is charged separately and is worth taking. THE DIAOSHUILOU WATERFALL IS SEASONAL AND DEPENDS ENTIRELY ON WATER LEVEL - full in the wet late summer, often a trickle in spring, and frozen from roughly December to March. Boats run in the open-water season only and are suspended in high wind. The cliff diving is weather and condition dependent.