Hamra National Park, National park with ancient forests in Ljusdal Municipality, Sweden
Hamra National Park is a national park in Ljusdal Municipality, Gävleborg County, part of Orsa Finnmark in the Dalarna province. Its original 28-hectare core is a wooded low moraine hill about 19.5 hectares in size, rising 410–415 m above sea level, bordered by 7 hectares of bog and, to the north, the 0.8-hectare tarn Svansjön. The 2011 expansion brought the park to 1,383 hectares, with the Svartåmyran bog and the Svartån river valley, where coniferous forest stands along the water.
The area was designated as one of Sweden's first national parks in 1909, though it covered only a small patch of forest at the time. In 2011, it was greatly expanded to bring a much larger section of the surrounding woodland under protection.
The name Hamra comes from a nearby village, and the park sits in a part of Sweden where forest life has long shaped local identity. Walkers today can see areas where trees have been left entirely untouched alongside zones that still show signs of past human activity.
Three car-accessible entrances serve the park: the main entrance, Myrentrén and Svartåentrén. From the main entrance and car park a roughly 500 m wooden boardwalk leads to Svansjön and the old-growth forest of the original 1909 park. Marked trails of up to 10 km start from these entrances, partly on boardwalks; the terrain is at times demanding but mostly well marked.
Some of the pine trees standing in the park are several hundred years old and were already ancient when the first protection status was granted. Their twisted trunks and dead branches show what a forest looks like when it is left entirely to its own rhythm.
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