Mountain for Everyone
Italy
Skiing in Alta Badia, for many people with disabilities, has never really been an option. Not for lack of desire, but for lack of the right tools, expertise, and adequate infrastructure. Mountain for Everyone is the project through which Casa Costa Foundation ETS — together with Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente — is working to change this reality, one step at a time.
Alta Badia is one of Europe's most renowned ski destinations. Immaculate slopes, modern lifts, world-class tourism infrastructure. It is also, like much of the winter mountain world, a place that has historically been difficult to reach for people with disabilities — not because of technical impossibility, but because of a lack of tools, expertise, and organisational will.
Mountain for Everyone was born to bridge this gap.
The framework: Hol4All and Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente
The broader context for this initiative is Hol4All, a project by Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente that works to make holidays accessible to people and families who are excluded from them — not only for economic reasons, but also for logistical and physical accessibility barriers. Hol4All operates across multiple destinations in Italy, building in each a stable provision of tools and expertise for adapted sport.
In Alta Badia, Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente launched this work by equipping the area with dual ski and mono ski equipment for adapted alpine skiing, and by funding the training of ski instructors certified to teach people with disabilities. Not improvised guides: certified professionals, capable of safely managing complex clinical situations and delivering a quality experience on the snow.
The final piece: the B.A.S.S.
Casa Costa Foundation ETS chose to join this project by funding the purchase of a B.A.S.S. — Borney Adapted Snowboard System, the world's first adaptive device designed specifically to bring people with disabilities closer to snowboarding.
The device was created by Andrea Borney, a snowboard instructor from Courmayeur and President of Lymph Foundation ETS, a foundation that has long been working on inclusion through adapted sport and scientific research. The B.A.S.S. has been validated with people presenting very different conditions: cerebral palsy, severe functional limitations, intellectual disabilities. Its effectiveness in clinically complex situations sets it apart from other existing devices.
The equipment has been donated by the Foundation to Alta Badia and will remain available to the area year-round, entrusted to the instructors already trained through the Hol4All programme. A permanent resource, not tied to individual events.
Current provision in Alta Badia
Thanks to the partnership between Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente and Casa Costa Foundation ETS, Alta Badia now has:
- B.A.S.S. – Borney Adapted Snowboard System — funded by Casa Costa Foundation ETS
- Dual ski and mono ski for adapted alpine skiing — donated by Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente
- Trained and certified ski instructors for teaching people with disabilities — thanks to Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente
Our role
Casa Costa Foundation ETS did not build this project alone, nor does it claim to have done so. It identified solid, existing work — that of Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente in Alta Badia — and chose to contribute where a gap remained: adapted snowboarding, until now absent from the area's offering.
This is the model we believe in: not duplicating, not replacing, but integrating. Bringing a precise contribution where it is needed, within networks that already work.
The Casa Costa 1956 group — with Hotel La Perla in Corvara and Hotel La Posta in Bagno Vignoni — has built over time an idea of hospitality that extends beyond its own properties: to the territory, the community, and those who live in these places or who simply wish they could reach them. The Foundation is the part of that project entrusted with turning this vision into concrete action. Mountain for Everyone is a direct expression of that commitment.
Next steps
The project is open. The current provision is a foundation, not a finishing line. In the coming months we will work with Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente and local partners to explore how to expand the offering, increase the number of trained instructors, and make these tools better known and more accessible to those who need them.
Anyone living or working in Alta Badia who wishes to contribute to this project is welcome to get in touch.
Project developed in partnership with Fondazione Allianz UmanaMente as part of Hol4All.
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