It's only a 1km walk from the Scărișoara hostel to the tarmac road and a 500m walk up the path to the ice cave ticket counter. We were admitted just before 10am as the first tourists and there were only two of us. Mid September isn't the best time of year to visit an ice cave but there was still ice inside the cave and a little ice on the stairs. They did a good job with the lightning. Not too much and a bit of colour. We did see ice caves before (Iceland and Croatia) and this one was impressive enough. As we were leaving the cave another tourist entered and on the way up a large group came down.