Borders

Northern Alps, February 2017.

Above the cloud sea, the sky is blue and the slopes are not full of people. Obsession of the skiers once the slope is done, the queue to the chairlift remains short in this supposed period of affluence. Wireless cards and turnstile terminals allow rapid flow advance, having long since replaced skier identification and the visual verification of the validity of the precious sesame. But it is another unexpected constraint that appears on our path: the domain extends over two countries and we are thus taught the need to be able to be identified by an official document.
Would there be currency trafficking through stations, skiing migrations, or is it simply a reminder, beyond the uniformly surrounding whiteness, that borders remain a central institution of our political arenas? We hear some astonishment around us, some admit that they do not have their ID on them but go up anyway. Nevertheless, once at the top, no barrier and no customs officer on the horizon: skis slide in the fresh snow, seeming indifferent to the country that they glide into.