Dos Hermanas, or The Two Sisters, are a pair of impressive limestone towers guarding a pass near the town of Irurtzun. Somewhat incongruously they’ve now squeezed the A15 autopista between Pamplona and San Sebastian through the gap, but it remains an impressive piece of geology.

There are major routes on both sides, up to 8 pitches and almost 200m, but there are bird bans in force for much of the spring and summer. There are also a couple of single and two-pitch crags, of which Balcon de los Buitres looks to be the major one. 50 routes up to 50m, and in a stunning setting.

There’s a great topo and approach map here (and the same site contains pretty comprehensive topos for the rest of Navarra) https://www.nafarmendi.org/contenido/153/dos-hermanas—biaizpe-irurtzun

Well signposted trail…

… following white/yellow/green markers…

… until an obvious cairn marks the path off to the left which traverses to the foot of the crag. Here’s a trail too:

Steep slabs and vertical walls without too much in the way of positive holds (lots of rounded breaks and smears) combined with spaced bolts and stiff grades – another Navarra crag where it is best to leave your ego back at the campsite. If you can disentangle the climbing from the given grades (and I do find that a struggle) then the routes are highly recommended. Here’s Helen on Ekintza Gaua, a very enjoyable V+.

To add to the charm and convenience there are elegantly painted black route markers on most of the routes. We were reassured to read that “Vultures don’t eat Alpinists”…

… but later discovered that “alpiste” actually means “birdseed”, so their appetite for climbers remains an open question! In any event, this chap (on one of the 30+m 6cs towards the centre of the crag) seemed to survive his close encounter:

The crag stays in the sun through into the evening – here’s a distant shot of some late arrivals as we were heading down from the crag:

That’s it for our brief Navarra visit – plenty more to return to discover, and we found a great base to explore from: Camping Izarpe https://campingizarpe.com/en/home/ is halfway between Dos Hermanas and Etxauri and highly recommended. A bucolic idyll…

with soaring Red Kites filling the sky…

… and the soothing clang of the bells around the necks of the shaggy sheep: