Starting from the 1960s the Alps began to be exploited by ski-oriented tourism. In Italy, a climate of prosperity and a ski boom driven by the successes of a group ot athletes known as the “Valanga Azzurra” transformed, over the years, the Alps in a sort of playground for tourists fleeing from cities during the holidays and weekends.

A development model based on building infrastructures and expanding the alpine skiing tourism industry, seen as the only way to slow down the depopulation of the Alps and give a future to this fragile ecosystem.

But climate change, speculation, bad investments and the decline in the number of skiers have undermined this development model, leaving behind a cemetery ot steel cables, concrete, parking lots, abandoned hotels and deforested slopes.

Only in Italy there are almost 200 abandoned ski resorts, a number that will keep increasing in the future as, according to recent studies, there will be no future for ski resorts without artificial snow and below a certain altitude.