The reserve was established in 1990 and it extends over a 800 hectares area between Civitella del Tronto e Valle Castellana, which manage the reserve together. It's a part of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park and it stretches along a narrow gorge between the Campli Mountain and the Flowers Mountain in which the river Salinello flows.

It's an area rich in springs, sulphureus and ferruginous, falls, streams, lakes and caves (the most famous is the S. Michele Arcangelo Cave). The naturalistic heritage is noteworthy: Beech, Oaks and Chesnuts woods, Roverella, Hazel, Holm Oak and Manna Ash trees, green meadowland with primrose, variegated orchid and edelweiss.

also noteworthy are the variety and the rarity of the fauna made up of badgers, squirrels, dormice, weasels, beech martens, foxes, boars, even the recent addition of chamois and deer.

Over the mountain tops flies the golden eagle, the hawk, the peregrine falcon, the kestrel, the Greek partridge, while in between the branches one can find the spider catcher, the coalmouse, the bullfinch, the greenfinch and some nocturnal birds of prey such as the tawny owl and the long-eared owl. A small rare anfibious animal called “geotritone italico” lives in the reserve's caves and gorges.