It was overcast and rainy in the valley, so I was skeptical that it would be worth skiing today. About halfway up the canyon, however, the rain turned to snow, so we were good to go.
We got a perfect parking space in front of the lodge on the Albion side. Two spaces down from us, coincidentally, Sam had just parked his old BMW. He was taking some prospective engineering students skiing. Since one girl he brought had never skied before, he too would be skiing only the Sunnyside Lift today.
The light snow had blanketed the groomed lower mountain slopes with about a two-inch layer of powder snow, so the skiing conditions on our first few runs were really good.
It was just fun to ski with everyone, even though I didn't ski any challenging terrain. My boots, which hurt my feet for a while at the beginning of the day, suddenly didn't really cause any problems besides some mild numbness of my right toes, and a mild pain on the widest part of my left foot. In fact, I managed to keep them buckled all the way for part of lunch. So, the possibility that my ski boots might be OK was also a nice development.
As for the skiing, obviously it wasn't entirely compelling. I did, however, enjoy practicing carving my turns on the gentle terrain. (The fact that I was skiing more technically proficient today makes me wonder, yet again, whether or not my fatigued technique on more challenging terrain is causing some of my boot woes this season.)
Mindy just did her thing. She was on Steve's old skis, which are a more appropriate length for her (160 centimeters). She loved skiing on the new powder snow, and, by all accounts, she had a blast, so that makes me happy.
The bottom line is that I would take a ski day like this one over last week's powder day with ridiculous potential, which just ended up causing more pain and frustration than it was worth. In both instances I'm skiing, except in this case I'm skiing with people whose company I enjoy. I'd take the company of those people over the company of 16 inches of powder snow any day.