Gräppelensee
| Gräppelensee | ||
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| Gräppelensee to the east, in the background the Wildhauser Schafberg | ||
| Geographical location | Toggenburg , Canton of St. Gallen (Switzerland) | |
| Tributaries | nameless brook | |
| Drain | Seebach → Thur → Rhine | |
| Location close to the shore | Wildhaus , underwater | |
| Data | ||
| Coordinates | 740 052 / 230589 | |
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| Altitude above sea level | 1307 m | |
| surface | 2.1 ha | |
| length | 140 m | |
| width | 110 m | |
| scope | 500 m | |
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particularities |
Nature reserve |
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The Gräppelensee is located in the upper Toggenburg northwest above the village of Unterwasser in the municipality of Wildhaus-Alt St. Johann in Toggenburg in the Swiss canton of St. Gallen .
description
The shallow lake is located in a long, west-east running hollow between the Mittelberg in the south and the Lütispitz in the north in a protected moorland area . It can only be reached on foot; driving on the Alpstrasse is prohibited.
You can swim in the Gräppelensee; there is a wooden walkway on the north bank. Hiking trails lead to several villages in Toggenburg, to Säntis and to Schwägalp . A picnic area with a fireplace is available on the east bank. Fishing is only allowed under certain conditions. The lake is a spawning area for numerous amphibians and leeches and one of the few habitats for the lesser pond rose in Switzerland.
West of the Gräppelensee is probably the coldest place in Eastern Switzerland on Alp Hintergräppelen in a depression between the Gupf and Oberstofel . The record is -38.2 degrees. Even in summer, the temperature can drop below freezing.
Surname
The name «Gräppelen» can be derived from the pre-Romanic Crap (= rock) and the Alemannic –ila ; an example of Romansh - Alemannic language symbiosis. The name should refer to the rocky Mittelberg immediately in the southwest of the lake.
The rocky Mittelberg in the background of the Gräppelensee
View over the Gräppelensee to the west
legend
The legend of the Gräppelensee tells the story of a girl who resists the temptation to exchange her soul with the devil for a precious treasure.
Plane crash
On April 28, 1944, at 1:15 a.m., an English Avro Lancaster bomber crashed above the Gräppelensee. The Swiss air defense and a German fighter had tried to shoot him down; who hit the machine is unclear. The plane began to burn in the air, exploded and crashed into the slope. Two men of the eight-man crew were able to parachute themselves, the other six were killed. A plaque commemorates the crash at the scene of the accident.
Crash site
Plaque
Web links
- Attacked by night fighters Report on the plane crash near Gräppelensee on warbird.ch
- Interactive 360-degree panorama of the Gräppelensee
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fishing in Toggenburg. ( Memento of the original from January 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On the Toggenburg Tourism website, accessed on May 10, 2013.
- ↑ Christoph Käsermann: Nuphar pomila. (PDF; 716 kB) Leaflets on species protection - flowering plants and ferns (as of October 1999). In infoflora.ch accessed on May 10, 2013.
- ↑ Stephanie Martina, Raphael Rohner: Chill in summer: a detour to the coldest place in Eastern Switzerland. In: St. Galler Tagblatt , August 14, 2019, accessed on May 8, 2020.
- ^ Gerold Hilty : Alemannic and Romansh in the uppermost Toggenburg. On the linguistic history of a border area of Old High German Switzerland. In: Harald Burger (Ed.): Verborum amor. Studies on the history and art of the German language. Festschrift for Stefan Sonderegger on the occasion of his 65th birthday. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1992, ISBN 3-11-011682-0 . Pp. 680-700.
- ↑ The treasure from Gräppelensee. ( Memento of the original from January 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 735 kB) Accessed on May 10, 2013 from the St. Galler Wanderwege website .
- ↑ 2nd World War: Attacked by night fighters - Crash of a Lancaster near Gräppelensee. Retrieved May 10, 2013 from A. and J. Walker's private website.
