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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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
First-time visitors, who need to be good but not expert skiers or snowboarders, are encouraged to hire guides, while those with backcountry experience can rent ski or snowboard touring equipment and follow one of the 14 designated trails, shown on the noticeboard at the base. Two of the trails are “easy”, the rest medium, while a couple are hard enough to require ropes, boot crampons and mountaineering knowhow.
Homeland was set up in 2023 by a group of friends that includes Tommaso Luzzana and Paolo Pichielo, who run an outdoor events agency in Milan, and Walter Bossi, an alpinist and ski tourer from the city of Lecco, who heads up the operation.
Walter comes out to greet us and introduces us to Giacomo Casiraghi, our guide for the day. I’ve toured a few times and have my own equipment, but this will be my son’s first time, so Walter sets him up with some touring skis, which are lighter than regular skis to aid uphill ascents, and “skins”, which will stick to the bottom of his skis for traction while climbing.
We’ll both carry avalanche safety kit, including a transceiver, probe and shovel – the carabinieri fine skiers and snowboarders caught in the backcountry without it – though Giacomo tells us the avalanche risk is currently low. It’s not snowed for a couple of weeks and the weather has been mild, melting much of the early season snowpack – our hazards today are most likely to be bare grass and rocks.
But the lack of snow hasn’t diminished the beauty of the landscape, and as we set out, charting a path up towards the Passo della Spluga between the empty stone houses and then zigzagging up the slopes beyond, we agree it feels amazing to be out touring under blue skies and sunshine, having spent months under the UK’s grey anticyclonic gloom.
My son is steady on his touring skis, but Giacomo gives him some helpful tips on how to be more efficient by gliding forwards with each leg as opposed to stepping and lifting his skis, and shows him how to kick-turn, an almost 180-degree change in direction, which will allow us to climb steeper sections.
We reach the Passo della Spluga, which was the first customs point between northern and southern Europe and even featured in Roman maps, and Giacomo, who has been a mountain guide since 2012, tells us his great-grandfather used to be a postman who crossed these mountains with his horse in all conditions. We marvel at how he did that with none of the fancy modern touring equipment we have today.
We’ve done an easy route, but Giacomo gives us a taste of a medium difficulty run up towards a peak called Pizzo Tamborello, which gets our hearts beating faster and allows us to practise our kick-turns. But after a while, rock and grass take over the snow and we have to stop.
We rip off our skins, have a quick snack break and begin our descent. It takes a few turns to shake off the heavy legs from the climb but we’re soon whooshing down the mountain with big grins and carving up the slightly sticky but still super-fun untracked snow right the way down to our start point at Homeland’s base.
While my son lounges on some cushions, I meet Daniela Pilatti, the mayor of Madesimo, the commune that includes Montespluga and the ski resort Madesimo where we’re staying, 15 minutes’ drive down the valley. She tells me they welcomed the idea of Homeland, especially at a time when Italian ski resorts are facing such an uncertain future; 90% of the country’s slopes are dependent on artificial snow, according to the NGO Legambiente, and Pilatti looks visibly moved when describing how much the region’s glaciers have receded during her lifetime.
“Snow conditions are less certain, ski lifts are expensive to run, and so it’s very important for the community to adapt and develop this area for the future,” she says. “It’s a wild place with no cars and ski touring has a very low impact on nature. It’s fantastic.”
Walter says they’ve had visits from other resorts in Italy and France who are interested in replicating the model. “We want to give an answer to the changes we’re seeing in ski resorts,” he says. “It’s difficult to keep going with the old model and Homeland is like a laboratory to test ideas for the future.”
Along with snow touring, they run avalanche safety training, winter camping experiences and snow kiting, and down the line hope to build some huts for overnight snow touring across the border to Switzerland.
The hotel we’d spied earlier, the Albergo della Posta, which has been welcoming guests since the 19th century, doesn’t usually open until the end of February, but staying in Madesimo made sense for us as we’ve travelled with my husband and younger son, who have been exploring the slopes there.
We head out together on the mountain the next day. It’s quite a contrast to the serenity of Homeland – not least because the whirring snow cannon are in full swing – but it’s still a lovely little resort with stunning panoramas, scenic runs through the trees and some fun reds and blacks to get our teeth into.
I was worried that Madesimo’s proximity to Milan might mean it attracts the fashion set, but we found it down to earth and family-friendly, and the food both on the mountain and in the town was incredible and significantly cheaper than what you’d pay in the French Alps.
My son loved the challenge of ski touring, and it was great to get that bonding time with him in such a wonderful natural setting, and to find untracked snow, but he was also more than happy to be back on the ski lifts and bombing around the resort with his brother the next day. Homeland is an awesome concept, and it may well be the resort template of the future, but it worked perfectly for our family to be able to combine a visit there with some days in a traditional ski resort. While we still can.
The entry level ski tour was provided by Homeland: it costs €125pp, plus €45pp for equipment rental
Sam Haddad writes the newsletter Climate & Board Sports
