The Ranzen Valley (840 - 1,005 m above sea level) is located west of the center of the municipality of Musau. Between the mountain "Ranzen" and the Musauer Berg, this valley connects the community of Musau and the town of Vils. As early as 1990, this area was designated as a "Protected Landscape Area". Despite the distant location to the Lech, the Ranzen Valley with a size of 89.9 ha belongs to the nature park / nature reserve Tiroler Lech.

Here is a very special beech forest, with trees strongly curved above the ground in their growth. Close to each other are a fen, a raised bog and sparse forest slopes with rare orchids.

At first glance, it is noticeable that all the logs are strongly curved just above the ground. This indicates that the ground has moved. The cause of this is to be sought in a mudflow or rockfall.

The beech stand is already very old - slow growing mosses and lichens on the lower part of the bent trunks give a hint.

The Hundsarschbach flows through the protected landscape part mostly hidden behind a forest strip. It is strongly bedload-bearing, which can be clearly seen from the high gravel banks. Near-natural wooded strips are completely missing in certain areas.

A management plan has been prepared for this area, which is worthy of protection, in order to preserve the special habitats and species.

The south-exposed, steep slopes in the Ranzental warm up easily and are dry. Particularly rare heat-loving plants grow here, such as the branched grass lily and many protected orchids (mosquito helleborine, burnt and spotted orchid ).

A fen with its dense tufts of grass, the small sedges, has developed over time on the wet subsoil. The lowland meadows are partly grazed, extensively or intensively managed or no longer managed.

In some places degraded raised bogs used as litter meadows and small water bodies are embedded. In the southeast of the Ranzental there is a raised bog surrounded by a spruce forest and already heavily overgrown.