Too Hot? Jump into Winter!
A massive heat wave hit Austria in June. How hot? Well, let's just say it broke records at temperature around 39-40 degrees Celsius. Heat like this is awesome if you're surrounded by ocean...but in the mountains the heat just hangs in there. Even the wind is hot. (Honestly!)
Our Airbnb host gave us some great advice on how to deal with this:
"In these kind of hot temperatures, get as high up as you can!"
So that's exactly what we did.
We went up to exactly 2,300 metres above sea level, and it was blissful!
Rifflsee: A Mountain Lake at 2,232 m
Rifflsee is Austria's highest mountain lake, and we happened to go on a day when (once again) practically no one was there. It felt like we were exploring Iceland again!!
[In truth, we wanted to actually go up the Weisseespitze Glacier at 3,440 m...but the lift wasn't running until July, and the hiking trails were closed due to all the rapidly melting snow pack on the mountain. But hey, we explored something just as cool - yeah, bad pun. #SorryNotSorry]
Up here the air was cool, the pace was slow (due to the elevation) and the scenery was unreal. I think our biggest surprise was that there were cows grazing up here too!
The puppers got to play in the snow (which they LOOOOVE) and we got to drink all that peacefulness in gulps.
Interesting Facts About Rifflsee Lake:
Altitude: 2,232 meters above sea level - Austria's highest mountain lake
Length: 995 mWidth: 393 m
Maximum depth: 24 m / average depth: 11 m
Volume: 2.95 x 106 m³
Geographic location: 46°57`59``N- 10°50`57``E
Terrain size: 26.9 hectares
Lake's drainage area: 1,600 hectares
Mountain lake with inflow and outflow
Fish population: trout, rainbow trout and brook chars (Yum!!)
It is one of the most peaceful places we've had the pleasure of experiencing
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