Diving Weissensee

Site Overview

Weissensee is a alpine lake dive site in Carinthia, Austria, set among the country’s varied freshwater landscapes. Weissensee is a high-altitude Carinthian lake and one of the great ice-diving meccas of Europe. In winter it hosts the world’s largest ice-diving festival, with hundreds of divers under a thick, clear ice sheet. In summer the submerged forest, steep slopes and trout make for clear, cold, atmospheric dives. The altitude and cold mean a drysuit and altitude procedures, and the depth builds from the shore. Visibility is often excellent, and the mountain setting is spectacular year-round. It is a lake that offers both extreme cold-water ice diving and serene summer wall diving. Conditions are typical of Austrian inland water: visibility generally runs from 12 to 28 metres, the current is low and the water temperature ranges between 2 and 20 degrees Celsius depending on season and depth. The marine life is freshwater and centred on lake trout (brown trout), arctic char, grayling, with the full community described below for those planning a dive. Because of its advanced rating and the need for Advanced Open Water certification, Weissensee is best approached with the right thermal protection and, where relevant, altitude or overhead training. It is a representative example of why Austrian lake diving, with its cold clarity, submerged forests and wrecks, attracts divers who want something different from tropical reefs.