No lifts? No problem: a low-impact ski touring trip in the Italian Alps
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At Homeland, a lift-free ski experience in Lombardy, you have to hike up to ski down. Our writer wonders if this is the future for winter resorts. The first sign we’re heading into the wild, having left the cosy confines of our resort for a ski touring taster, comes when three mountain goats jump in front of the car, eyeball us skittishly, then launch themselves off a vertiginous drop to our left.
![[The writer’s son and guide.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5aec298efc57ee50f1034591f51bca8fb022361a/0_212_2016_1210/master/2016.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
My 14-year-old son, in the passenger seat beside me, curses loudly, and I take a deep breath. We drive on, navigating some serious hairpin bends, before arriving in Montespluga, which sits at an altitude of almost 2,000 metres in the Lombardy region of the Italian Alps, about two-and-a-half hours’ drive from Milan.
![[Montespluga, the base for Homeland.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1578f98977e9d23f6c55b455cb47bed9d5a6413e/0_60_1920_1152/master/1920.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
We’re at the end of the road, quite literally, as the Passo della Spluga, a mountain pass that runs from here into Switzerland, is closed in winter. The setting is both tranquil and spectacular with towering ridges, rocky crags and snow-covered bowls fanning out before us.
![[Sam Haddad and her son out in the mountains near Montespluga.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5bd0158d67aef4ee476af8e6afe2a422aa7422ac/0_126_1512_1890/master/1512.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Montespluga is technically an Alpine village, though right now it feels more like a ghost town – a clutch of old stone houses and an antiquated hotel have either been abandoned or boarded up for winter – save two sleek glass-fronted shipping container-style prisms sporting the words: Esplora, Impara, Homeland (Explore, Learn, Homeland).
![[Sam Haddad and her eldest son.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2a0907ce3d044987c78c5165deb6294c8074be6f/0_0_2016_1512/master/2016.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The buildings act as the base for Homeland, an innovative, low-impact ski resort where there are no expensive or energy-intensive lifts or groomed runs – instead the focus in this wide and empty valley is on ski touring and hiking to where the snow is best.
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