The area is remote, with few settlements or town; the reserve is 1,447 km from the capital city of Khabarovsk.

The southeastern part of the Dzhugdzurksy section is a series of mountain spurs to the coastal strip and is very hard to access.

The southern section of the reserve ("Coastal") is a ridge of 600–800 meters that drops precipitously to the Okhotsk Sea coast.

The dominant vegetation is light coniferous taiga with Dahurian larch (Larix gmelinii forming the canopy in areas with low snow cover.

[2] The northernmost zone, Dzhugzhur, is mostly larch forest, representative of the ecoregion, with some Scots pine.

The animals of the reserve are those found in the meeting of the East Siberian taiga (sable, brown bear, wolverine, moose), the Arctic (ptarmigan, Rough-legged Buzzard), and the Asian (including bighorn sheep).