The Italian Alps are well known for skiing and offers dozens of mountain resorts, from the duty free zone of Livigno, to the glitzy Cervinia. However, what many people don’t realise is that it’s possible to ski on Mount Etna in Sicily – Italy’s mafia soaked Mediterranean Island, which lies off the south coast of the country. Mount Etna is the largest and highest volcano in Europe, and one of the most active volcanoes in the world; and is in a state of almost continuous state of eruption. Sicily was chosen by the Gods of Olympus as mountain bike tyres the scene for their sagas of love and war, passion and revenge, and it was Mount Etna – the realm of Vulcan, god of fire – that was the home of the one-eyed monster known as the Cyclops; today it’s still a land of fire and latent wrath. Building a ski area on an active volcano Mountain Bike Tires is not without its difficulties; continuous eruptions and lava flows have repeatedly damaged or destroyed various lifts systems in the past. In October 2002, rivers of boiling lava poured down from Mount Etna’s crater, engulfing small buildings, incinerating pine trees, mountain bike tires pushing over ski lift pylons, knocking down power lines and swallowing a ski school hut before surrounding an empty mountain (everyone had been evacuated). However, the Sicilians have become accustomed to living in the shadow of the volcano, and have always rebuilt what the lava has destroyed. Skiers and snowboarder describe the Etna experience as like nothing else in the Alpine world: “It’s an amazing place to ski – on a clear day you can see the sea, and at the same time you have a plume of gas and steam constantly rising from the summit”.