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Disambig This article is about the Snow Cave on The Island. For the Snow Cave on Ragnarok, see Snow Cave.
Snow Cave
CaveSnow
A Cave South-East from Whitesky Peak on the Island.
Interior Map

Snow Cave Cavemap

Location
The Island Topographic Map
Location
29.1° Lat, 31.8° Lon
Climate
Biome
Temperature
Clothing
Fur Armor Fur
Loot
Artifact of the Strong
Artifact of the Strong
29.9° Lat, 26.5° Lon
Loot quality
Blue Crate Blue
Yellow Crate Yellow
Red Crate Red

The Snow Cave is in the Snow Biome.

Dangers[]

  • Wild Creatures only spawn between levels 120 and 340 on default settings (they are not tamable). With DifficultyOffset value set to 1, the creatures level can be as high as 672 although the max wild level dinos outside are only 120.
  • Extreme Cold
  • Water (6 absolute damage per 2 seconds)
  • Purlovia (if they can reach you, they can dismount you). If the players deploy their direwolf right after the crouchpoint, it will attract large amount (10-20) of Purlovia.
  • Confusing pathways

Recommended Equipment[]

Tips[]

  • Engram-Grade Fur Gear(the ones made from the Smithy via earning Engrams) is not enough insulation. You will want improved Fur from the Deep Sea Loot Crates.
  • Bring Direwolf in a Cryopod to sniff out the location of burried Purlovia. Lure all other creatures out of the room and kill them, then whistle a creature close to Purlovia to bait them out safely.
  • The cave gets colder the deeper you go. You can be well-insulated at the entrance, and freezing to death at the artifact. A good idea is to bring some Fria Curry Fria Curry or Standing Torch Standing Torch (use AnglerGel).
  • Direwolves are terrible swimmers. Whenever possible, take advantage of the floating snow "islands" to shoot them down while they swim.
  • Or use a Grappling Hook Grappling Hook and camp at the ice cave ceiling. You can easily kill all creatures from above using any kind of ranged weapons. Alternatively, you can skip fighting any creatures and just go through on the ceiling of the cave.
  • Don't fall in the water. You will be swarmed by high-level Anglers and freeze, and your gear will be much harder to recover.
  • Or gather all Piranhas and Anglers by swimming in the water and finish them with one rocket-propelled grenade. Don't forget to gather the meat and AnglerGel.
  • There is at least one pitfall trap with water at the bottom from which you will not be able to escape without a Grappling Hook Grappling Hook should you fall in (the one in question surrounds one of those green-lighted "sci-fi" monoliths).
  • You will either need to grapple over or harvest some large Crystal that block your path occasionally.
  • One or two dozens of well trained dimorphodons can help you clear the cave quite easily. Utilize your swarm tactics to overpower dangerous animals like Yetis and Direwolves and keep yourself safe while the swarm whittles away attacking animals.
  • One of the best ways to navigate the cave outright is by avoiding the creatures within. The extreme cold already poses a massive threat, and animal attacks will only worsen the pain of traversing the Snow Cave. Since the creatures are all of high levels and any mishap can have terrible consequences, they are best avoided. Try to find the quickest route through the cave that involves minimal confrontation with creatures, but beware that you may still be needed to battle!
  • Use the entrance, the player will be able to hit the other creatures with a ranged weapon but the other creatures won't be able to hit the player. The player can also lure the creatures to the entrance to make this tactic a little more effective, so that the hostile creatures will just stand in front of the entrance, and are basically an easy target.
  • One of the easiest ways to even solo that cave is to bring at least 20 metal spikes and 3 sleeping bags. Always stick to the left side of the cave and place one spike in front of you, the creatures will gain damage and die but can´t damage the metal structure. At chokepoints its recommended to leave at least 1 spike as a safe spot if you want to carry out more than one artifact at once without a shoulder pet. The first part of the cave has 2 loot drops where you cant build so you need to sprint through it. Just jump over the water, then left over the crystals and down the waterfall. This way you just need 2 Grappling Hooks to complete the cavern, but make sure you don't have something on your cooker because it will take several hours to complete the cave. If your server/game has Structure Plus mod installed, this strategy can work better as you can pick it up and save resource and weight.
  • With the introduction of Cryopod Cryopod, you can now easily transport creatures in and out of the cave safely.
  • In Ark mobile single player, there is a glitch where if you get out of the app completely while in the snow cave and then get back on, all enemies will despawn. Allowing you to roam the cave with no enemies at sight, you must be careful however, some enemies will stay and they will also start spawning back. But in the end, you should be able to speed run past everything.

Creatures[]

Compatible Tamed Creatures[]

This table is incomplete.
You can help us by adding the tamed creatures you know can enter the cave. If the creature can't enter, please exclude it.

Accessibility Ratings:

  • Excellent: Full-Cave Access (Entrance-to-Artifact)
  • Limited: Can Access Portions of the Cave Safely
  • Not Recommended: Can Get Stuck/Unable to Leave Cave
Creature Accessibility Rideable Notes
Allosaurus Allosaurus Cryopod Yes
  •  Can access full cave. Not aggroed by Direwolves or Purlovias unless attacked first.
Ankylosaurus Ankylosaurus Limited Yes
  •  Can enter cave but invisible barrier prevents access to first room. Perfect tank for battling the first Yeti, which can be drawn out with a range weapon and fought effortlessly with melee.
Archaeopteryx Archaeopteryx Excellent No
  •  Can be carried in and out by player.
Beelzebufo Beelzebufo Excellent Yes
  •  Arguably the best mount for this cave on any level, a particularly leveled one will have the ability to fit through the tiniest spaces and speed past all enemies to avoid conflict with them.
Compy Compy Excellent No
  •  Can keep one on shoulder or bring a whole pack.
Dilophosaur Dilophosaur Excellent No
  •  Can enter and exit the cave with little difficulty. Requires a punch or two to push past the crawling portion.
Dimorphodon Dimorphodon Excellent No
  •  Can keep one on shoulder or bring a whole flock.
Direwolf Direwolf Excellent Yes
  •  On Mobile the Direwolf is an excellent tame for this cave, it can fit through the narrow passage in the beginning.
Dodo Dodo Excellent No
  •  Can be carried in and out by player.
Dung Beetle Dung Beetle Excellent No
  •  Can be carried in and out by player.
Jerboa Jerboa Excellent No
  •  Can be carried in and out by player.
Kairuku Kairuku Excellent No
  •  Can be carried in and out by player.
Otter Otter Excellent No
  •  Excellent for insulation when mounted on shoulder.
Mesopithecus Mesopithecus Excellent No
  •  Can be carried on shoulder.
Pteranodon Pteranodon Limited Unofficial/
Single-Player
  •  Official Servers: Cannot enter cave.

 

  •  Unofficial/Single-Player: Requires server setting -ForceAllowCaveFlyers to mount and enter.
Pelagornis Pelagornis Excellent Unofficial/
Single-Player
Araneo Araneo Not Recommended Yes
  •  Somewhat difficult to enter the cave. Will be unable to leave the cave.
Vulture Vulture Excellent No
  •  Can be carried on shoulder.
Yutyrannus Yutyrannus Cryopod Yes
  •  Fully traversable within the cave. Can intimidate creatures and force Purlovia to emerge.

Notes[]

  • The freezing water does 6 damage to anything that steps or swims in it. Keep an eye on your health when collecting underwater loot crates. Fire a grappling hook vertically up if you cannot endure and have to leave water immediately.
  • Currently, this is the hardest cave in the game, newcomers beware and creatures are untameable. On mobile, You can take creature’s implants and revive them outside the cave to get a way higher level creature than the same species outside the cave.
  • Araneo are capable of being ridden into the cave by sprinting through the second blue crystal while hugging the wall. This can be difficult to do, but once performed properly, your Araneo will have access to the rest of the cave. Keep in mind, once you have passed the first blue crystal, you will be unable to exit. On ARK mobile, tames can be teleported to you so you don't have to worry about losing your Araneo.
  • Seeing that a Rex fits inside the cave, breeding other dinos that are smaller than Rexes inside the cave can also be done to help complete the cave.
  • All Red Chests found in the Snow Cave function differently than normal cave loot crates, in that their loot table is identical to the Deep Sea Ocean Crates. Given that the Snow Cave operates on a 3.25 - 4.0 item quality threshold, the end result are crates containing the ocean loot table at a higher than normal quality than anywhere else in the game.
  • As a testament to how cold and deadly this cave is, at 4 frozen human bodies can be found in the cave.
  • There is an absurd amount of Purlovia in the cave (not on Mobile) which will leap and stun/dismount you before you see the dirt piles, almost always resulting in death. It is advised to kill other creatures in the area first before proceeding past a Purlovia. Your best bet will be using a metal shield as it blocks initial damage, and then to use a high-powered melee weapon to finish it.
  • On Mobile there are no Purlovia or Polar Bears inside the cave.
  • Releasing a cryo'd Yutyrannus and riding that will not make the cave trivial, but it will make it considerably easier, as it can scare Purlovia out of their burrows, is too tall to aggro the Anglers, and its fear roar works on all land creatures. It also has better accessibility than Rexes in this cave.
  • An easy way to farm the cave on mobile is using an arthro or a araneo as creatures won’t aggro onto them
  • Using araneo on mobile is a good idea as it is a quicker, easier tame, and it can squeeze through large crowds of creatures. An Arthro can’t pass through them so easily. An araneo can turn on the spot, meaning you can turn around easily without falling of a cliff or turning easily in narrow passages.
  • If you do not have any good fur armor, otter is your best choice, an otter with even primitive fur set will prevent you from freezing even in the artifact chamber. Put some points in the fortitude for more insulation.
  • An army of imprinted and leveled-up Dimorphodons can form a very useful and strong mounts to kill every land creature inside the cave, although beware of Purlovias.
  • The room after the part where you jump from the ice “islands” usually has lots of enemies, only go in once you're prepared.
  • Using high level tamed Rexes with good melee and health can be very helpful when trying to safely complete the cave by allowing you to decimate wild creatures that pose larger threats. Although, you will still have to dismount to use weapons and obtain the artifact.

Gallery[]

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