Lac des Perches, Mountain lake near Rimbach-près-Masevaux, Alsace, France
Sternsee is a small mountain lake near Rimbach-près-Masevaux in the Alsace region of France, sitting in a natural glacial cirque carved out by ancient ice. A moraine at the cirque's opening holds the water back, giving the lake its shape within a setting of forest and rocky slopes.
The lake's basin was shaped roughly 12,000 years ago when a glacier carved the land and left a moraine as it retreated. In the 16th century, a dam was built on top of that moraine to raise the water level and supply the forges and textile mills in the valley below with power.
The name Sternsee is said to come from the way the water surface mirrors the sky so clearly on still nights that stars appear in it. The lake is also known as Lac des Perches, a nod to the perch fish that live in its waters and can sometimes be spotted near the surface.
The lake is only reachable on foot: park at the Riesenwald farm and follow the path marked with a blue triangle, with the round trip taking roughly two and a half hours. Sturdy shoes are recommended because the trail has uneven sections and some uphill stretches, and the area is protected, so visitors should stay on the marked paths.
A local legend recorded by Auguste Stoeber tells of a creature called Dambürle that roams the valleys at night beating a drum, forcing anyone who hears it to follow until dawn, ending up at the Ballon d'Alsace or by the lake. The textile industry the lake powered until the end of the 1950s has long since disappeared, yet the water retained behind the old dam still amounts to nearly 500,000 cubic meters.
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