A retreating glacier on the 2,995m Austrian Dachstein mountain has revealed the remains of a long-lost ski lift.
As a snow field connecting the Hallstätter Glacier and the Schladminger Glacier has receded – due to a combination of higher temperatures and increased rainfall during the summer as well as less than average snowfall in the last winter – wood and metal structures have unexpectedly been exposed on Hunerkogel. That is a peak in the Dachstein mountains that straddles the border between Upper Austria and Styria.
Dachstein fließt davon: Am Sonntag machte dann eine alte Liftanlage, die durch den Gletscherschwund freigelegt wurde, Schlagzeilen. Aber wie kam es dazu? https://t.co/LRJTazGENj pic.twitter.com/VnQqynd9mB
![]()
— Kronen Zeitung (@krone_at) August 19, 2025
The find has surprised the company operating the ski lifts in the area, Planai-Hochwurzen-Bahnen.
“The lift was probably intended exclusively for summer use in the early 1970s,” the company’s manager, Georg Bliem, told Austrian media on August 18.
The area used to be a small but popular high-altitude skiing resort until March 2023 when it was closed down and the remaining lifts were dismantled.
The lift whose ruins were now found reportedly was in use only for a couple of years before being snowed in and covered under ice.
“The wooden structure has disappeared under the ice cover. Now, in the wake of climate change, the lift has reappeared,” Bliem said.
Glacier expert Klaus Reingruber told newspaper Krone on August 19 that the lift owed its long time under the ice to its location on the mountain.
“There used to be much more snow in the upper part of the glacier. The lift was built on the ice back then. At some point, it must have been covered by snow and never uncovered again. Gradually, ice formed around it and over the decades it sank down with the ice,” he said.
“The glacier area where the structure was found is relatively flat. The ice moves very little here.”
The find has been met online with some ridicule about supposedly exaggerated climate change fears. One user wrote on X: “The climate catastrophe is now finally escalating on the Dachstein Glacier. For the first time in 3,500 years, so much snow is melting in summer that a lift that was used there 50 years ago for summer operations has suddenly been exposed.”
