Pian Gelassa
A gondola-served resort in the Alta Valle Susa that went bankrupt in 1969, barely a decade after it was conceived, leaving hotel and housing blocks that were never finished and a 1993 relaunch that never happened.
- Region
- Piedmont
- Country
- Italy
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- early 1960s
- Year closed
- 1969
- Reason for closure
- Avalanche problems and a tortuous access road brought on the first crisis, and the company went bankrupt in 1969. A relaunch project presented in 1993 was never carried out.
History
Pian Gelassa lies in the Alta Valle Susa in the comune of Gravere, reached by turning off the Susa to Frais provincial road a few kilometres short of Pian del Frais, on larch and meadow ground running from roughly 1,500 m to 1,900 m. The resort was conceived in the early 1960s with a cabinovia and a skilift, and it failed fast: the first bankruptcy came in 1969. The Piedmont census names avalanche problems and the winding access road as the causes of that first crisis, and the site never recovered from it - the company was taken over by Societa Alpe Montana, and a relaunch project presented in 1993 was never realised. What the surveyors found was the full anatomy of a stalled speculation: the gondola's departure stations decaying, the skilift's pole lines still up, and hotel and residential buildings that had never been finished at all. They graded the environmental damage six out of six, the maximum in the whole census, against a feasibility of clearing it of just one. Course names were never compiled.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Gondola | A cabinovia serving the resort, its departure stations found in a state of decay | |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | A skilift, of which the pole lines remained |
Sources and further reading
More in Italy
Location
45.1002, 7.0328