Apparently it is a bug, if you try this
import numpy as np
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import axes3d
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection="3d")
X, Y = np.mgrid[-1:1:30j, -1:1:30j]
Z = np.sin(np.pi*X)*np.sin(np.pi*Y)
ax.plot_surface(X, Y, Z, cmap="autumn_r", lw=0, rstride=1, cstride=1)
ax.contour(X, Y, Z+1, 10, lw=3, colors="k", linestyles="solid")
plt.show()
And rotate around, you will see the contour lines disappearing when they shouldn’t