End of the season

This weekend was our last skiing of the season, and I'm glad that after earlier questioning whether I still enjoyed skiing, in the end I wish I had actually gotten out more this winter. Verbier was beautiful, but the recent warm weather meant that all of the lower runs were closed--meaning the upper runs were crowded--and the snow on the upper runs went from icy in the morning to slush in the afternoon. (Some people were actually skiing in t-shirts.) The high point was probably in the morning when I was just standing there waiting to take a run when a woman lost control, came skiing into me from behind, and stopped by wrapping me in a bear hug--amazingly neither of us fell down and Gretchen didn't seem too jealous.

Anyway, this is Gretchen in a patch of dirty spring snow with the town of Verbier down below, and me in the midst of the crowds: