Gosausee

LakesYukarı Avusturya (Salzkammergut),Austria

An Austrian glacier-carved lake that mirrors the Dachstein and its glaciers on a still morning, circled on a flat path under sawtooth limestone walls.

September·Peaking now

Jul–Sep

Come at dawn before the wind gets up; swimming is free, but the water rarely passes 20°C even in August.

Year-round Ice-Age glaciers gouged the basin; the Hoher Dachstein, its shrinking glaciers and the Gosaukamm's limestone teeth wall in the water all year. The full mirror, swimmable water and complete shore loop are all seasonal.

Gosausee is 1.8 kilometres of still green water with the 2,995-metre Hoher Dachstein and its glaciers standing at the end of it, and the limestone teeth of the Gosaukamm closing the frame on the right. It is one of the most reliable mirrors in the Alps, and the loop around the shore is flat, about 4.5 kilometres, and takes an hour. Come early. Wind gets up as the day warms, so the reflection belongs to the first hours: the mountain doubled so cleanly that the join is hard to find, cold air sliding off the surface, spruce resin in it. Stay to the end of a clear day and you get the opposite — the lake sinks into shadow while the Dachstein's north-west face still burns red above it. Every winter a power station drains much of the water away. The basin is genuine enough: Ice Age glaciers gouged it out, and underground springs at the far end still feed it. But in 1913 the Gosau valley scheme dammed the outlet and raised the water by about 12 metres, turning the lake into a reservoir. Through the winter, when electricity is worth most, the turbines draw it down. The depth falls from roughly 75 metres to 36, and wide grey gravel flats surface where the shoreline should be. Then the Dachstein snow melts, the lake fills, and the mirror comes back. Boats can be rented, divers come for water that clears as the reservoir fills, and a cable car climbs to the huts on the ridge. The ice at the head of the valley is going. The Great Gosau Glacier has lost more than half its area since the 1850s, its tongue has drawn back about 1.5 kilometres, and forecasts give it until roughly 2050.

Worth knowing

Good to know

A dry spring leaves the lake low into early summer — the refill runs on snow and rain, and in lean years the grey gravel flats are still showing when the first visitors arrive.
Swimming is free and allowed, but this is snowmelt — the water rarely climbs above 20°C even in August, so treat it as a plunge rather than a swim.
The cable car from the shore runs only in the warm half of the year, roughly May to early November. Outside those months the ridge huts above the lake have to be earned on foot.

Things to do

1
Walk the flat loop under the Gosaukamm walls
An hour of level path circles the water, with the Gosaukamm's limestone teeth rising straight out of it on one side and the Dachstein ahead. Come in late October and the larches on the slopes turn gold above a lake the power station has not yet drawn down.
2
Catch the Dachstein mirror before the wind finds it
On a calm morning the surface goes glassy and the mountain arrives twice, so evenly that the waterline is hard to place. Stand at the outflow, where the classic framing lines up. For the other version, take one of the rented electric or pedal boats out to the middle, where the Dachstein stands straight up out of your own reflection.
3
Hike on to the back lake and its glacier
Roughly an hour and a half beyond the far shore, past the alpine pastures, the valley narrows and the Hinterer Gosausee appears under the rock. This is where the Great Gosau Glacier finally shows itself properly, and where the crowds of the front lake thin to almost nothing.
4
Ride the Gosaukammbahn up to the ridge huts
The cable car lifts you from the lakeshore to the Gablonzer Hütte on the Gosaukamm in a few minutes. From up there the lake is a single green drop far below and the Dachstein massif stands opposite at eye level, glaciers and all. It runs in the warm months only.

Watch

Nearby

11 km