Irati Forest
The forest that doesn't know the modern world exists
The road leaves Ttipiaenea heading east and slowly begins to climb. You pass through Aoiz, the Lónguida valley and the gateway to the Navarrese Pyrenees. The river Irati appears on the right and no longer leaves you: you follow it for kilometres, through villages that grow smaller and quieter, until the road ends in a car park among the trees and the forest begins a few metres from the car's wheels.
From Ttipiaenea to the Casas de Irati it's an hour and a quarter. It isn't the closest destination, but it's one of the most remembered.
The second largest forest in Western Europe
The Irati Forest is a beech-fir woodland of more than 17,000 hectares in the Navarrese Pyrenees. Centuries-old beeches, thirty-metre firs, moss on every stone and a silence that isn't the absence of sound but the presence of something very old. The kind of forest it has taken humans millennia to learn to read well.
At the heart of the woodland lies the Irabia reservoir: the still water reflects the trees and the morning light in a way that makes people stop walking and stand there looking without quite knowing why. It's beautiful in a way that needs no adjectives.
Through the Irati ran the Irati Train, the steam locomotive that between 1911 and 1955 crossed the forest loaded with timber bound for Pamplona. Today the trails partly follow that route, and if you know where to look you still find remains of the track among the ferns.
The village that deserves a compulsory stop
On the way to the Irati Forest, the Salazar valley takes you through Ochagavía: one of the prettiest villages in Navarre and one of the prettiest many of those who visit it remember from any trip. Stone houses with wooden balconies, a medieval bridge over the river Anduña and a square where time seems to run at another speed.
The autumn descent from the forest down to Ochagavía is one of those done slowly: the beeches have changed colour, the river carries more water than in summer, and the village smells of chimney smoke and bread. If you visit in October or November, the colour of the Irati beech wood is one of the finest natural spectacles on the Peninsula.
Rest at Ttipiaenea Landetxea
The return from Irati is one of those drives that do themselves: the Salazar valley descending in silence, the Pyrenees falling behind, and the feeling of having been in a place that looks like nothing you've seen before.
In an hour and a quarter you're at Ttipiaenea. The house has a different light in the afternoon. The kitchen is waiting, the fireplace is ready if the night turns cool —and on Irati days it usually does— and dinner deserves a little more time than usual. Some days in nature have that effect: when you get home, the home feels better.
How to get there from Ttipiaenea
- Distance86 km · 1 h 15 min via Aoiz and the NA-172
- Recommended stopOchagavía · Halfway, in the Salazar valley
- Casas de IratiStarting point for the trails · Free car park
- Access in summerThe road to the reservoir may be closed · Check beforehand
- Best seasonAutumn (Oct–Nov) for the colours · Summer for hiking
- With childrenYes, ideal · Flat trails by the reservoir from age 3–4
