High Traverse – Alta Valle Po to Mercantour

7-15 March 2026, Cottian Alps

This is a moving gathering of adventurous minds engaged in holistic resilience building and regenerative futures.

Tour description

Over the course of a demanding, high-alpine ski traverse, we cross the Cottian Alps from the Po Valley, circling the striking, pyramid-shaped Monte Viso, and continue westward to the Stura Valley, where the Ligurian Alps and the Maritime Alps begin. We travel hut to hut along snow-rich ridgelines and the Franco-Italian border crest, with one night spent in and around a high-altitude bivouac.

Each day takes us through wild, remote terrain along the French–Italian border, ascending and traversing between roughly 1,800 and 3,200 meters. The journey begins in Ostana, in the Po Valley, at the Monviso Institute.

The total distance is about 67km, and the summed-up vertical is around 6600m.

The Unconference format

At the start in Ostana, and as a daily routine, we consciously interweave stimulating topics from place-specific knowledge, to cultural narratives of the Occitan region, to living systems labs as holistic types of experimental places and spaces, on holistic resilience building in an urban-alpine (rural) context, and provide a flexible framing of scale-linking, fractal design, where eight (spatial) scales of governance meet six types of circular flows. Such framing may serve as seeds for various dialogues amongst this carefully curated group of mountaineers with their rich knowledge base and work schemes.

View the tour page for more information and application.