Gran Paradiso National Park protects an area characterized mainly by an alpine environment. The mountains that make up the range, in the past have been cut and modelled by giant glaciers and by streams that created the valleys that we see today.
In the forests of the valley floor the most common trees are larches, mixed with spruces, Swiss stone pines and more rarely silver firs. Higher up the slopes the trees gradually thin out and make way for vast alpine pastures, rich with flowers in late spring. Higher still, the landscape is characterized by rocks and glaciers, right up to the highest tips of the massif which reach a peak of 4000 metres with that of Gran Paradiso.