Mummelsee

The Mummelsee lies at about a thousand and thirty metres in a cirque scooped by ice below the Hornisgrinde, the highest summit of the northern Black Forest. It is small, roughly eight hundred metres round and seventeen metres deep, with dark water because the surrounding peat stains it and there is little inflow. The name is usually traced to Mummeln, a local word for the white water lilies that once grew here in numbers, though the water sprites of legend, the Mümmlein, may also have given it, and local legend fills it with nixies and a lake king; Eduard Mörike wrote a ballad about them. A path circles it in twenty minutes and rowing boats are hired in season. A hotel and shops sit at the roadside.

The landscape

• The dark water - a peat-stained cirque lake below the Hornisgrinde.
• The shore path - a circuit of about twenty minutes.
• The legend - water sprites and a lake king in local folklore.
• The Hornisgrinde - the northern Black Forest's highest summit above.

When to go

May to October; the lake freezes in winter and the road can be snowbound. It is on the High Road so it is busy with passing traffic through the day.

Practical notes

The site is very commercialised with a hotel, shops and paid parking directly on it. The lake is small, seen in half an hour. Weekends are crowded.

Nearby

The Hornisgrinde rises above; Baden-Baden lies north.

Key facts