Monte San Primo

This guide to Monte San Primo above Lake Como asks why rusting chairlift towers stand on a summit famous for its panorama rather than its snow. It follows the ski resort built here in the late 1950s despite slopes that rarely held snow, the lift that a land dispute shut down near the end of the nineties, and the fight between local councils and environmentalists over whether to rebuild it. Older still is the villagers' midsummer procession to a vanished chapel on this same summit, a ritual the guide sets against the ski investors' later gamble.