The Lago Castel or Lago Kastel (in

Walser The Walser people are the speakers of the Walser German dialects, a variety of Highest Alemannic. They inhabit the region of the Alps of Swiss Alps, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, as well as the fringes of Italy and Austria. The Walser peopl ...

: ''Chaschtulsee'') is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

in the municipality of

Formazza Formazza (; ; ) is a (municipality) in the Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola in the Italian region Piedmont, located about northeast of Turin and about north of Verbania, on the border with Switzerland. Formazza borders the following municipalit ...

, in the

Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola The province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola (, ) is a Provinces of Italy, province in the Piedmont region of Italy. It was created in 1992 through the fusion of three geographical areas which had previously been part of the province of Novara. The ar ...

History

The lake was expanded with the construction, between 1924 and 1928, of a 17-meter-high dry stone dam, so that its waters could be used for hydroelectric purposes at the Sottofrua hydroelectric power plant. However, the overly permeable terrain rendered the dam ineffective over time, as the basin's waters filtered through the karstic bottom of the reservoir, leading to the dam's decommissioning in the 1950s.

Characteristics

The lake is located at an elevation of 2224 m, in upper

Val Formazza The Val Formazza () is a valley in the Lepontine Alps, in the Piedmontese Province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, Italy. Bordering Switzerland, it represents the northernmost part of Val d'Ossola and Piedmont.Corno Gries The Grieshorn (also known as ''Corno Gries'') is a mountain of the Lepontine Alps, located on the Swiss-Italian border. With an altitude of 2,969 metres above sea level, it is the culminating point of the group lying between the Gries Pass, the ...

, the

Punta del Castel The Kastelhorn (also known as ''Punta del Castel'') is a mountain of the Lepontine Alps, located on the border between Switzerland and Italy. It lies north of the Basòdino The Basòdino is a mountain in the Lepontine Alps on the border betw ...

, and the

Basòdino The Basòdino is a mountain in the Lepontine Alps on the border between Italy and Switzerland. It is the second highest peak in the canton of Ticino, after the Rheinwaldhorn. On its summit is located a geodetic point of IGM named ''05A901 Mo ...

. Near the lake stands the , and a

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is ...

has been established. Created by the

Alpe Veglia and Alpe Devero Natural Park The Alpe Veglia and Alpe Devero Natural Park was established in 1995 and is in the Ossola valley, in Piedmont, in the Province of Verbania, Italy. It is part of the Western Alps, Occidental Alps. History The hollows are geologically and mineralo ...

, it is dedicated to the area's floristic peculiarities and can be visited via a thematic path called the ''sentiero fiorito''.

History

Characteristics

See also