THE HIGHEST MASSIF IN THE BASQUE COUNTRY
The home of Idiazabal cheese
Aizkorri-Aratz Natural Park
This area comprises a long mountain range, with an east-west direction, which includes the highest peaks of the Basque Country (Aitxuri, 1,550 m) and is the boundary between the Cantabrian and Mediterranean slopes, as well as separating the Historical Territories of Alava and Gipuzkoa.
Most of the substratum is formed by urgonian limestones whose erosion gives rise to spectacular karstic phenomena: ridges, dolines, torcas, lapiaces, ravines, etc. Among them are famous places such as the Hoya de La Lece, the San Adrián tunnel, the Urbia depression, the Arantzazu ravine, etc. In Elguea-Urkilla the substratum changes and sandstones and clays emerge, resulting in a landscape of rounded slopes with an undulating profile.
In the Natural Park are preserved magnificent and extensive representations of native forests: beech forests, oak oak groves of sessile oak (Quercus petraea), etc.. In the higher parts of the mountains, the wooded vegetation becomes rarer and gives way to mountain meadows and heath-argomales, fruits of intense grazing sheep lacha traditional in these mountains.
In the countryside areas of the northern slopes, the typical mosaic landscape associated with Basque farmhouses can be observed, in which meadows, orchards and fruit trees alternate with small stands of radiata pine. On some slopes, conifer plantations reach remarkable extensions.
In the limestone rocky outcrops there is a very unique flora, full of endemic species from the high Cantabrian-Pyrenean mountains. Other habitats of great botanical interest are the incipient peat bogs linked to siliceous substrates, such as that of Arbarrain (Altzaina).
Aizkorri-Aratz Natural Park has 3 park houses, 2 in Gipuzkoa and 1 in Alava:
Arantzazu Interpretation Center. Oñati (Gipuzkoa).
- Telephone: 943 782 894
- e-mail: arantzazu@gipuzkoanatura.eus
Zegama interpretation center (Gipuzkoa).
- Telephone: 943 802 187
- e-mail: anduetza@gipuzkoanatura.eus
Natural Park House or Mitxarro House-Museum. Araia (Alava).
- Telephone: 945 38 69 69 64
- e-mail: parketxe.aizkorriaratz@gmail.com