Halfway between Sondrio and the Stelvio, on the banks of the Adda, there lies a village built from the very stones the river has been grinding and smoothing for centuries. Mazzo, surrounded by forests and firs, is one of those Italian gems where nothing appears to have changed over the past centuries. Across from the belfry of the village church, crowning the ridge of the Bergamo Alps, lies the old chalet of Salina. To reach it, one must climb a steep and narrow mountain path: an old mule trail that had once been used by shepherds to drive their cattle up to the mountain pastures and that had lain idle for many years since. It was reactivated by Patrick, a stock farmer from Mazzo who maintains old traditions and nowadays keeps thirty cows that he leaves outside to graze in the summer. Just as Patrick tries to revitalize the path, he also strives to reconstruct the ancient bonds that tie man to his environment, bonds which seem never to have snapped in the people of this region.