The Dachstein Skywalk and suspension bridge

The Dachstein-Südwandbahn leaves Ramsau am Dachstein and climbs in one span to the Hunerkogel at about 2,700 metres, on the boundary between Styria and Upper Austria. Everything worth photographing is within a few minutes of the top station, which makes this one of the very few high-alpine locations in the country that works for a couple in ordinary shoes.

The Skywalk is a steel balcony opened in 2005: seventeen metres long, the last four of them out past the rock edge above a 250-metre vertical drop, with part of the floor in glass. From it the view runs west across the Tauern to the Grossglockner and, on a clear day, south to the Triglav in Slovenia. The suspension bridge, opened in 2013 and the highest in Austria, crosses to the ice palace with up to 400 metres of air beneath it, and fourteen glass steps — the Stairway to Nothingness — drop off its far end.

Light decides everything here. Mornings are usually clear and the south face is lit flat from the front; by early afternoon cloud has often built along the ridge and the station can be sitting inside it. The glacier holds snow in every month, so even a July shoot puts white ground and bare rock in the same frame.

Dress for it: at 2,700 metres it is routinely fifteen degrees colder than in Schladming, and windier. The platform and the bridge close in storms, the cable car takes a maintenance break between seasons, and the bridge and ice palace are ticketed separately from the ride — check current prices, operating dates and the last descent.