Uaul Scatlè - Fichtenurwald, Brigels

If you climb from Brigels along the Flem, just under an hour up towards Val Frisal, you will pass the spruce forest. The steep forest to the left of the path looks like a normal subalpine forest at first glance. On closer inspection, the many dead trees and the obvious lack of care are noticeable.

"Scatlè" means "nested", and the spruce forest is really nested with steep ledges, boulder debris fields and avalanches. Because it is also quite remote, wood has never been felled. Investigations have shown that there was neither forest grazing nor charcoal burning. The herd of goats, which used to pass by twice a day in summer, had grazed at most along the lower edge of the Flem. The municipality of Brigels had already decided in 1909 to leave the forest in its original state, to create a "reserve d'uaul primitive". This was four years before the Swiss National Park was founded.

In the "open-air laboratory" Scatlè, forest engineers and forest ecologists can study the natural life cycle of a subalpine forest. Rarely has a piece of forest been measured so often and its trees and rotting tree corpses so meticulously catalogued.

A spruce has a life expectancy of about 500 years. 100 years of scientific observations thus provide insight into at most one fifth of a forest generation. On the other hand, the small piece of jungle has helped some diligent students to get their doctorates in a short time!