Seealpsee is a lake in the Appenzell Alps in the commune of Schwende District.
 |
| Seealpsee |
The Seealpsee lake has a conditionally oval shape, elongated from west to east for 630 meters, the maximum width does not exceed 210 meters, the area is 0.136 km², the maximum depth is 15 meters, the surface mirror is at around 1143 meters above sea level. Seealpsee is located in a narrow river valley, from the north it is limited by mountains up to 1850 meters high, from the south the height of the peaks reaches 2050 meters.
 |
| Seealpsee |
The nearest settlement from which you can walk (about 1 hour) to the lake is Wasserauen. A network of hiking trails connects the shores of the lake with other attractions in the region, such as the Sentis mountains (2502 m) and Ebenalp (1640 m), the Wildkirchli cave complex.
Seealpsee is a popular tourist attraction, so all the necessary infrastructure is present along its banks: hotels, cafes, etc. The largest hotel on the lake is called Trout, since this fish is found in abundance in these waters.
For the first time this lake was mentioned in written sources in 1682 under the name See Alper See.
 |
| Seealpsee |
In the summer of 2009 and 2010, the water of the lake suddenly turned bright red for several days. Research conducted by ETH Zurich, together with colleagues from the Universities of Zurich, Copenhagen and Konstanz, revealed that the algae Tovellia sanguinea from the group of dinoflagellates, which multiplied strongly due to the increasingly pure water and an increase in the amount of oxygen in it, is to blame. The last similar case was recorded in 1964 in the Italian lake Tovel.
How to get to Seealpsee lake
The ascent to Seealpsee Lake and to the Aescher hotel is one of the most famous and beautiful routes in Switzerland.
The order in which we did it was Wasserauen, Seealpsee, Äscher and Ebenalp.