Eiswoog

The Eiswoog is a reservoir, roughly six hectares in area, on the Eisbach stream, locally also called die Eis, in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

It is oriented from south to north in the water meadows near the source of the stream in part of the northern Palatinate Forest known as the Stumpfwald.

A woog is the local German name given to natural or artificial lakes in this part of the world that used to act as storage reservoirs for watermills and hammer mills or as assembly points for the rafts of firewood or sawn timber.

The Barbarossa Cycleway and Landesstraße 395 state road, which links Eisenberg in the east with Enkenbach-Alsenborn in the west, run past above the lake to the north.

[4] In 1812 the iron smelter owner, Ludwig Gienanth, bought the now nationalised "Eisenwoog",[5] in order to expand this water reservoir to supply hydropower to his factories on the Eisbach near and in Eisenberg, and also to ensure their continued operation in times of drought.

The dam of the Eiswoog was raised and reinforced in the years that followed, which enabled the water surface to be expanded to its present area of roughly 6 ha.

In a model project by the Kaiserslautern University of Technology part of the footpath and the facilities around the lake were modified to create a disabled-friendly nature trail.

The aim of the project was to enable the observation platform, lakeside facilities and a panoramic footpath to be accessible to people with sight and mobility disabilities and to open it up to families with prams.

The section phase of construction was completed in 2009 and the nature trail opened on 25 August by the Rhineland-Palatinate Minister for the Environment, Margit Conrad.

[8] The current terminal halt (Haltepunkt Eiswoog) of the Eis Valley Railway, which was re-opened for tourism purposes, is only used at weekends.

Kingfisher
Wheatear
The shore of the Eiswoog
Stumpfwald Railway diesel locomotive and flat wagon
The viewing point is at the right hand end of the viaduct.