Climate friendly travel
By train and without traffic jams comfortably to Bad Rippoldsau-Schapbach - from there you hike in two hours to the Glaswaldsee.
Lonely it lies there and sometimes even looks a little threatening under a gray sky against the background of the pale forest green. But that doesn't stop many visitors from tackling the eventful hike to this ancient cirque lake in the Black Forest
That's how fairy tales begin: Once upon a time at the Glaswaldsee in the Wolftal, in the districts of Schapbach and Bad Peterstal... You can really imagine the sonorous voice of the narrator as he slowly, sentence by sentence, dives into the mysterious world of Lake Glaswald. But he won't go particularly deep, and now we're back to reality: At its deepest point, Lake Glaswald is just 11 meters deep; the body of water, which used to be called Wildsee, is a cirque lake that was formed after the Ice Age - one of the last ten cirque lakes in the Black Forest that have not yet silted up.
The lake is also sometimes called the "blue eye" of the Black Forest; together with its immediate surroundings, it was declared a "Glaswald Nature Reserve" as early as 1960. The rather small lake, with a shore length of 650 meters and an altitude of 839 meters, does not owe its poetic name to its supposedly mirror-like, clear surface. No, on the contrary, due to its bedrock of red sandstone and its high acid content, the water is actually rather dark - and the name simply comes from the fact that in 1587 a smeltery was built on its shore for the production of glass bottles. One rarely perceives the Glaswaldsee, which for many years was used as a reservoir in rafting, as a cheerful swimming pool, especially since swimming is not officially permitted in this lonely, somewhat mysterious place. (However, you can always see guests who briefly - and unpunished - refresh themselves in the lake).
By the way, you can find tips on how to travel comfortably and inexpensively on long-distance and local trains with Deutsche Bahn here.
