Whistler 2010: Keystone Symposium

One of the best perks about being a scientist is that you do get to travel. I generally go once a year to a conference called the keystone symposium. It generally occurs in the winter and is at a nice ski resort. Last year, Kathleen went with me to Banff, Canada. This year the meeting was in Whistler, where much of the Vancouver Olympics occurred. Unfortunately, Kathleen couldn't go with me, but I wanted to share some of the things that I did there.

I left early on a Monday morning, and my flights went from Durham-Minneapolis-Vancouver. However, upon boarding in Durham, the flight had no more room for baggage, and my carry on got redirected. That made getting between planes easy, but upon arriving in Vancouver, I was sans carry on. Luckily, I am mildly paranoid, and I had packed a few changed of clothes in a backpack I brought with me. Anyway, end result after three flights and a shuttle ride (which was beautiful, the sea to sky highway is amazing) I arrived in Vancouver.

The first day of meetings started late, so I decided to go for a run. I saw on a map that the bobsled track wasn't to far away (about 6 miles round trip) so I decided to just run it. It was great. I love going up hills, so I had a blast heading up the mountain. When I finally got up, I saw all the signs stating that it was a construction site, but I ran in (ready to plead dumb american). I was able to get a few pictures before being asked very nicely (Canadian yelling) to leave the area. It was pretty cool to see this side of the Olympics. I was amazed at how quickly they had taken down all of the Olympic things.

The nice thing about these meetings is that they give you the middle of the day for free time. I went skiing once. It was a beautiful sunny day. The views were awesome, you could see forever. There are two mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb. It is the biggest ski resort in North America. Between the two mountains there is the longest gondola stretch in the world, which I was able to take. It was amazing. The bottom middle picture in the above collage is a picture of the gondola from the ground. The black spot is the gondola between the two mountains. Awesome. I also really like the view from the top of Whistler mountain. There they had an Inukshuk, the symbol of the Vancouver Olympics. The views were amazing. I really love being on top of mountains. I am also a little scared of heights. But, after getting past the fear, I sure love the feeling of being on top of the world.

I mainly stuck to the easy runs for the day. I still don't trust my knee all the way after the ACL repair. It was really worth it though. It was wonderful way to spend a sunny day. The snow was perfect up on top, down towards the base it got slushy and was almost like water skiing. It was great though.

Whistler Village is a fun place. I took some time to wander around and see the fun ski buildings. There really wasn't tons left from the Olympics, just three months earlier. They had the mascots everywhere so you could buy them, and they had a small memorial to the Georgian Luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili, who died during the Olympics. I was surprised that it wasn't bigger. I signed the little book that they had. I really like the relief map of the mountains (bottom middle). I spent some time looking at it and tracing the runs. The Flag poles surrounded by the chain link fence was all that remained of the medals center. I was disappointed with that.

My final day in Whistler I had a nice lunch of eel rolls and the beautiful roll (salmon, crab and avocado) sushi. That was preceded by the bowl of squid. It was really good. I finished my break by doing a 8 mile run to a mountain lake. It was beautiful. I must have looked funny running around and then stopping tourist style to take pictures. I loved the mountains, with the snow, but how warm it was down in the valleys.

The meetings were really good. It was wonderful to see people from Colorado and who had left the lab. The science was really good, and the venue was a lot of fun. It was best, however to go home. I was excited to see my Kathleen and our kids. We skyped daily while I was gone, and while that helps immensely, it is so much better to be in the home with them.