Baatara Gorge Waterfall, Lebanon

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These epic cave bridges aren’t from some fantastic movie set, they’re part of a real limestone cave. The Baatara Gorge Waterfall, or “Three Bridge Chasm,” in Tannourine, Lebanon was carved out of ancient limestone over millions of years by winter meltwater.

The waterfall, which is fed by meltwater from Mount Lebanon, falls 250 meters into the chasm’s depths past 160-million-year-old limestone from the Jurassic period. Experiments carried out with flourescent dye in 1988 indicated that the water from the chasm emerges from underground at a spring in the nearby town of Mgharet al-Ghaouaghir.

Signs at the cave discourage visitors from standing on the bridges or coming to close to the edge, the edges are slippery, and the bridges may collapse under the weight of too many visitors.

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