Todos los Santos Lake

Lies within the National Park Vicente Pérez Rosales

Lago Todos los Santos (literally " All Saints " ) is a large pond in southern Chile, which is roughly the Lake Maggiore is comparable in terms of area, depth and volume of water.

The 178 km ² lake is situated 20 km east of the much larger Lake Llanquihue in southern Chile Seeendistrikt, near the border with Argentina. It is located entirely within the oldest Chilean Vicente Perez Rosales National Park. In addition to the heavy rainfall in this region some minor Andean rivers and streams feed the lake; its only outflow is the Río Petrohué.

The western shore of the lake is accessible from Puerto Varas on a road link, the east bank about Argentina. Otherwise there are in the vicinity of the lake, just walking paths or motorable roads with off-road vehicles. On the lake a regularly scheduled shipping line will entertain during the summer months in addition to excursions.

Surrounding the Lago Todos los Santos is by steep, forested mountains and three prominent volcanoes Osorno in the West, the Puntiagudo the north and the Tronador in the east. The Osorno shows lately (2012 ) again increased activity, the other two are off. The lake and the surrounding area are located in the belt of the Valdivian rainforest.

Apart from the usual names today were for the waters a number of other common names under which Lago Esmeralda is the most famous. The area has been inhabited for at least 12,000 years. Many of the local Mapuche were the beginning of the 17th century killed, expelled or enslaved by Spanish immigrants.

There are some tourist facilities, especially in the places Petrohué Peulla and around the waterfalls of the river Petrohué, but overall the tourism despite the long existence of the National Park still under construction. In addition to trekking and kayaking angling tourism is becoming increasingly important. The Río Petrohué is now considered the best fishing waters in Chile, but he does not owe this entirely exposed, originally in Todos los Santos - Río Petrohué system domestic species the presence of the natural fish fauna of the river and the lake has problematic implications.

Formation

The lake basin was carved out by Ice Age glaciers, the repeatedly branching starting westward moving to the Pacific Ocean from the Tronador. The Tronador, an extinct volcano on the border with Argentina is still covered by glaciers. After his retirement, the basin filled with water and formed a very large lake los Santos and surrounding areas included the area of present-day Llanquihue, Todos of. Subsequent volcanic activity especially of Osorno, and tectonic uplift separated the two lakes, so the water surface of the Todos los Santos is now about 100 meters above the Llanquihue.

Location

The lake basin extends in an east-west direction over approximately 40 km to the west of the lake is about 10 km wide in the east are much narrower. To the south extends a narrow 10 km long tongue, the Cayute fjord. In the middle of the western part the approximately 100 -acre, wooded island of Margarita is located. The total coastline is 125 km. Although the lake barely covers a third of the area of Lake Constance, its water volume is due to its large average depth of 34.4 km ³ almost two-thirds. The lake is fed by three smaller rivers and many streams, as well as from the frequent the area throughout the year rainfall. The total catchment area of all tributary is very large with over 3000 km ². The only outflow is the Rio Petrohué, the leaves on the western shore of the lake near the village of Petrohué and empties into the fjord Reloncavi after a length of not quite 40 km away. With a mean discharge rate of 270 m³ / sec, the water supply of the Petrohué is considerable.

Climate

The climate is characterized by the proximity of the Pacific Ocean and by frequent westerly winds. It is moist, cool - temperate. The weather pattern is hardly influenced from the East, only a few days a year, blowing a warm, dry, föhnähnlicher east wind, which Puelche Between April and December it rains almost every day, until March are slightly drier months of January. Overall, it is expected, at least with some rain at four of five days. The average rainfall over the body of water is about 3000 mm / m². In the surrounding mountain areas it is much higher. The temperature can reach 25 ° C in summer, in winter the values ​​rarely fall below 0 ° C limit. The average annual temperature fluctuates between 11-12 ° C. Snow falls in the lowlands only a few days, but the altitudes are covered in snow during the winter months.

Limnological details

The Lago Todos los Santos is a warm, monomiktischer and oligotrophic Tiefwassersee. The water quality is due to the lack of industry in the entire catchment area, yet excessive tourism and only a few large farms very well. The production of phyto-and zooplankton is low. The water renewal interval is four years. Its surface temperature is about 7 ° C in winter and in summer reaches 15 ° C. The lake never freezes up. Due to the seasonally varying intensity of rainfall and the fact that during the winter months of the precipitation falls as snow and therefore is not immediately effective outflow, the water level of the lake varies seasonally by up to three meters. Usually it is in the southern mid-winter and the lowest during the first summer third highest.

Fish fauna

(This post is limited to the description of the ichthyofauna - general information about the fauna and flora of the area should be included in the National Park Vicente Perez Rosales article. )

The fish fauna of the Todos los Santos was originally both species as well individuenarm. On the one hand the oligotrophic nutrient status due, on the other hand, the specific Chilean conditions, where could arise due to the shortness of the rivers whose flow systems are also isolated from each other, no species-rich freshwater fish fauna. Originally, in the lake and river system of the Todos los Santos, only four fish species native Perca trucha, a Bar Chart ( Percichtys trucha ), which can reach a length of 40 cm, bagre ( Trichomycterus sp areolatus. ? ), A Schmerlenwels, the pike Ling Peladilla ( Aplochiton taeniatus ), and the New World silverside Basilichthys australis, which is endemic to Chile and is known in the region Pejerrey. As its name suggests ( Pejerrey = Kingfish ) was the latter as a food fish particularly appreciated. Especially exposed to fishing purposes salmonids decimated the population of all four native species. The Peladilla and Pejerrey were not already fished a long time and may already be gone from the lake.

Today in the lake and river system outweigh alien species, such as brook trout, rainbow trout, Atlantic salmon, silver salmon and king salmon. The stock of almost all of these species can only be maintained by regular stocking measures, only the originally North Pacific King Salmon has self-sustaining populations and new Zugtraditionen developed since probably copies escaped in the 1980s from fish farms or were released.