It is within the Kosciuszko National Park, and is administered by New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change.

There is an access fee payable to the national park, and motor vehicles are not permitted to stay overnight in the winter months.

The trampling of hundreds of cattle consuming rock salt that graziers had placed there, caused depressions that filled with water.

The Hotel Kosciuszko was opened by the New South Wales Government in 1909 at what is now Sponars Chalet, near Smiggin Holes.

[4] The first Kosciuszko Chalet was built at Charlotte Pass in 1930, giving relatively comfortable access to Australia's highest terrain.