Izaña Icehouses, Historical ice storage facilities in La Orotava, Spain.
The Izaña Icehouses are stone structures built at about 2,372 meters elevation on the slopes of Mount Teide in Tenerife. The buildings use the natural cold at this height and were used to store snow and ice collected from the mountain slopes.
The icehouses were built in the late 1800s as a way for local people to store and sell ice year-round. These facilities remained in use until industrial cooling systems made them unnecessary in the 1900s.
The icehouses show how island residents found clever ways to store and move ice and snow across Tenerife before modern refrigeration existed. This knowledge about working with nature was part of everyday mountain life for the people who lived here.
The icehouses are best reached by marked trails within Teide National Park, where guided tours are available. The location is at high altitude in a dry area, so bring proper clothing for windy and cold conditions.
Next to the old storage buildings sits the Izaña Observatory, which has studied the Earth's atmosphere since 1991. The cold air that once preserved ice is now used for sensitive scientific measurement instruments.
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