Orri de Cizarols
The place
An orri ("dry-stone hut" of the Ariège shepherds) built at 1,500 m in the Haute-Ariège, near Orgeix — right next to (43 m away) the Cabane de Cizarols. An exceptional piece of pastoral heritage: an orri is a dry-stone shelter with a circular floor plan, a corbelled vault, and a roof of flat stones or lauzes — built entirely without mortar using prehistoric techniques still in use in the 19th century. A single low room, half the space taken up by a wooden or stone bed. Orris were used by transhumant shepherds and cowherds to shelter at night and in bad weather during the summer grazing season — still in use until the late 1960s. Classic access: 8 km of track from Orgeix (Orgeix valley, parking at 1,414 m), sometimes paved. An exceptional mineral and pastoral setting in the Haute-Ariège, with subalpine grasslands, beech forests, and iconic wildlife: isard, marmot (reintroduced in 1948), golden eagle, bearded vulture, capercaillie. A major architectural testament to Pyrenean pastoralism, dry-stone know-how inscribed on the UNESCO list since 2018.
Getting there
From Orgeix (parking at 1,414 m), 8 km of track toward the Orgeix valley. 43 m from the Cabane de Cizarols.
The setting
Haute-Ariège (Orgeix), dry-stone pastoral heritage, UNESCO 2018.
