Lac du Mont-Cenis

The Lac du Mont-Cenis fills the col's plateau at the Italian border, in the commune of Val-Cenis. It is an EDF reservoir: 'the Mont-Cenis dam offers a storage of 320 million m³ of water', behind a structure '120 metres high and 1.4 km long', built between 1962 and 1969 — 'the largest rockfill dam in France', and the country's last guarded dam, owing to its border position; the reservoir is shared roughly 1/5 for Italy and 4/5 for France. On altitude, official sources vary — 'over 1979 metres' (EDF), '2000 m' (tourist offices) — and we report both.

'For safety reasons, swimming is forbidden' — the sentence is the tourist office's. The lake is lived differently: a kayak-and-pedalo base billed as 'the highest in Europe', the walk round ('allow 5 hours'), the Fort de Ronce via the Sentier des 2000, the Alpine Garden 'free to visit in summer', and regulated fishing (trout, char, lake trout). Early in the season the drawdown bares the shores widely: in early June 2026 the reservoir was only 58% full.

From late May to early November: the col road opened on 22 May 2026 and is scheduled to close on 9 November 2026 (the local rule: from the 2nd Friday of May to the 2nd Monday of November). In winter the road largely becomes a ski run — L'Escargot, 'Europe's longest green run' (11 km). Mountain-lake fishing opened on 6 June 2026; boat fishing is allowed on Saturdays under conditions since 2023.