Kesselberg

Walchensee or Lake Walchen is one of the deepest and largest alpine lakes in Germany, with a maximum depth of 192.3m and an area of 16.4km2. The lake is 75km south of Munich in the middle of the Bavarian Alps. The entire lake, including the island of Sassau, is within the municipality of Kochel. To the east and the south, the lake borders the municipality of Jachenau.EtymologyThe name Walchen comes from Middle High German and means "strangers". All Roman and romanized peoples of the Alps south of Bavaria were known to the locals as Welsche or even Walche. This is also true of the etymology of the Swiss Lake Walen and the Salzburg Wallersee.Another possible interpretation is that it comes from the Latin Lacus vallensis, meaning "lake in a valley". On 16th-century maps, the lake is also labelled dicto Italico, meaning "leading to Italy", probably because the route through the Walchensee valley led through Mittenwald and Innsbruck to Italy.GeographyGenesisWalchensee fills a tectonic valley, part of the Bayerisches Synklinorium and from rocks of the triassic period . The extreme depth of the lake, 192.3m, is the result of this tectonic formation. The rock faces of the northwestern shore clearly show the steep arrangement of the rock layers. The creation of the lake from the forces of mountain building indicate that Walchensee could be one of the oldest lakes in Germany. During the ice age, the Isar–Loisach glacier repeatedly left its mark on the morphology of the area and thereby the Walchensee.