Lokadalen, Naturreservat

Lokadalen Nature Reserve offers dramatic scenery and traces of cultural history. Hanging lichen-covered spruce trees, ravines, and old untouched forest. An old road leads up the steep valley side from the old cabin site between the lakes.

Deep rift valley

Lokadalen is the longest and deepest of several rift valleys that cut through the border areas between Värmland and Västmanland. Through the reserve, the valley is sharply chiseled, with a steep eastern side and narrow lakes in a row at the bottom of the valley. Most spectacular is the narrow valley floor between Södra Loken and Norra Tröshyttetjärnen.

Untouched forests

The forest in the reserve has been untouched for the last 100 years. It has therefore developed towards a natural state with trees of all ages, gaps, gnarled deciduous trees, late-growing spruces and a large element of old trees and decaying wood. The oldest spruce is around 330 years old and stands on one of the steep slopes. But there are also plenty of trees aged 120-200 years eastwards towards Flymossen. Despite previous felling, it has never been completely cleared. The untouched large forest species have therefore been able to survive here.

Rare species

Many of the trees are richly adorned with various hanging lichens, with elements of rare species such as violet-grey thorn lichen and yarn lichen. All decaying wood also favors wood-living fungi. Spruce wood is home to rare species such as the spruce bark fungus and the starry spruce fungus, and the candelabra fungus can be found on coarse aspen logs. The availability of dead wood, where various insect larvae thrive, also favors the woodpecker and the rare three-toed woodpecker.

Old cabin site

Tröshyttan was built in the 1670s and operated until 1769. It was a small pig iron works, run jointly by a few farms in the area. Traces of the operation can still be seen in the form of slag heaps and older roads along the valley floor and up the steep slope. The cabin site is surrounded by a lush meadow spruce forest with bilberry, witch hazel and fern.