An enormous barrier, 1200km long, emerges at the heart of Europe: this is the chain of the Alps. For 5000 years man has sought to inhabit the more accessible areas. He has created paths and a network of roads, built villages then cities, and has subjected the region to a multitude of changes. But the alps still preserve their wild spirit. It is a world parallel to ours in which species survived climatic events of the past, exploitation of the land and mass tourism. Now they move around us, observing us, often not far from our tracks. They are animals and plants that owe their success to a capacity to live in conditions that, for all other species, humans included, would be barely tolerable. For them it is everyday life – life at its Alpine limits.
