Location
The area lies in Pojezierze Zachodniopomorskie (the Western Pomerania Lake District) east off Stargard Szczecinski. It encompasses a part of the Krapiel river, which is a right tributary of the Ina river.

History and Land Formation
The river, which flows through bottom moraine upland, has a typically mountain character, with deeply cut and meandering bed. Slopes of the valley are of different gradient and their height can reach up to 16 meters. At the edges of the valley there are well developed eskers.

Ecosystem
Deep and meandering valley with steep slopes is impervious, which helps to prevent its natural character. Within a relatively small area there are as many as 14 habitats of priority importance for protection of European nature and mentioned in 1 Appendix of the Habitat Directive.

The river has a sandy-stony bottom. Clearness of water is proved by presence of red algae Hildebrandia rivularis, which occurs only in clear and well oxygenated waters. The bottom and slopes of the northern part of the valley are overgrown by ash-alder alluvial forests, oak-hornbeam forests and Lazulo-fagetum beech forests. The forests have natural character - diverse age structure and numerous gaps and fallen trees. There are many old trees of monumental size, especially oaks and beeches. In southern part, in addition to ash-alder alluvial forests there are willow-poplar alluvial forests and extensively exploited wet meadows.

Xerothermic and sand calcareous grasslands and thermophilic scrubs can be found on the slopes of the valley. Rare and protected plants occur in large numbers, such as garden angelica, yellow water-lily, common twayblade, giant bellflower. Interesting is fauna of this region. Otters live on the river banks. The waters are inhabited by weatherfish - a rarely met, secretive species of fish, featured in 2 Appendix of the Habitat Directive. There is also a thick shelled river mussel (Unio crassus), almost extinct in Europe.

Threats
The biggest threat to the refuge would be carrying out a plan to build a water dam reservoir and flooding the whole valley. Among current threats the most serious is forestry. There are felling sites on the valley slopes and even just by the river, which leads to increased erosion of the slopes. The ecosystem is supplied by foreign species of trees, such as red oak and spruce. Another threat is overgrowing of previously extensively exploited, now abandoned meadows. Surface waters become polluted in result of inflow from the farmlands.

Protection of Nature
The area is a refuge incorporated to Natura 2000 network as a site of community importance.