Photo : Delphine ROUX / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Lac du Bouchet
Lac du Bouchet is a crater lake of almost circular shape, set in a maar of the Devès massif, between the communes of Cayres and Le Bouchet-Saint-Nicolas, in Haute-Loire. A maar is a crater dug by a volcanic explosion caused by contact between magma and water; the one at Le Bouchet is presented as one of the most beautiful in Auvergne and as the only one in the region occupied by a lake, about twenty-eight metres deep.
The lake has belonged to the département since 1863 and the site has been protected since 1950. Forests surround it for the most part.
A path, the Sentier du Garou, about five kilometres and an hour and a half's walk, goes round the lake under the trees from the car park of the site house. Its name comes from the Garou barrel, a former barrel-shaped hut linked to a hermit shepherd, which has become an emblem of the place.
