Valcanale
A Val Seriana area that closed around 1997 for want of profit rather than snow; its single-seat chairlift was left with the seats still hanging on the cable.
- Region
- Lombardy
- Country
- Italy
- Status
- abandoned
- Year closed
- circa 1997
- Reason for closure
- Poor profitability. The survey noted pointedly that the lifts had been shut for about ten years despite the quality and quantity of the snow that fell there.
History
Valcanale di Ardesio, at the locality of Pia Spis in the Val Seriana, is one of the clearest cases in the Lombardy survey of an area that did not die of climate. The Mountain Wilderness surveyors recorded that the lifts had been closed for roughly ten years - so around 1997 - 'nonostante la qualita e quantita di neve', despite the quality and quantity of the snow. What finished it was simply that it did not pay. The installations were a single-seat chairlift running from 1,200 m to 1,600 m on a north-facing wooded slope and two skilifts, reached by a surfaced road up from Ardesio. The survey of 2006-07 found the skilifts stripped of their platters and the chairlift still carrying its seats on the cable, with the building that had housed the hotel, bar and ski school by then destroyed. Ownership was private. The opening year is not recorded, course names are not compiled in accessible sources, and no later assessment of the site has been found; the coordinates mark the hamlet of Valcanale and should be treated as approximate.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift - Single | A single-seat chairlift from 1,200 m to 1,600 m, found with its chairs still mounted on the line | |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | One of two skilifts, found standing but stripped of its platters | |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | The second of the two skilifts, also without platters |
Sources and further reading
More in Italy
Location
45.9502, 9.8588