There are several areas with pollarded beech trees that we find in Gorbeia. If you want to take a nice walk and meet one of our beech forests, we recommend you visit the beech forests of Mount Albertia, the Altube beech forests, the Izartza beech forest.  (Orozko), the Presazelai beech (Otxandio) and the Otzarreta beech  (Zeanuri).

If we come across a beech forest in the natural park, in addition to enjoying the view and the magic that this place generates, we must know that there was ferrona activity in that area.  

The branches of these peculiar beech trees  They served as raw material for the production of charcoal that formerly fed the foundries of our valleys.

The beech trees were not cut from the trunk but only their branches were pruned to a height of about 2-3 meters in order to be used as raw material.

After the extraction of the branches, charcoal burners were made in the middle of the mountain , where the wood was burned to make charcoal.

By not throwing the tree, they could continue to take advantage of the new branches in a period of about 10-15 years without the need for the beech to disappear.

Due to this action, the peculiarity of the branches of its trees is that they grow horizontally instead of vertically, providing the beech tree with a chandelier appearance and generating a majestic and different landscape as a whole.

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In addition, if you pay attention, surely in some of the beech forests you will find some stone platforms where the coal bunkers were built and cart roads where the coal was transported.

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Beech trees were pollarded when they were about 50 years old. The main guide was cut, and next to the cutting area the tree produced a series of branches that were then cut every fifteen or twenty years or so