Aspen/Snowmass 2024
I'm wrapping up a three-week stay in Aspen, Colorado, for another summer workshop. This is my fourth time attending one of these events (previous visits were in 2019, 2015, and 2014) and without a doubt they are some of the most pleasant academic activities out there. For several weeks I'm able to gather with twenty or thirty other experts in one of my research areas in a cluster of small academic buildings for a lightly scheduled program with lots of time to meet and talk, and on evenings and weekends the beauty and activities of the high Colorado mountains (which are basically my favorite place ever) are all around.
My parents drove me up here just under three weeks ago, reaching town mid-afternoon on Saturday. The original hope was that we'd be able to check into my condo, go grocery shopping in town, and then have a nice dinner; then my parents would spend a night in a hotel and leave the next morning. This plan was complicated (as a number of things about this trip have been complicated) by the fact that I was assigned a residence in Snowmass, which is a ski area development 30 minute drive from Aspen proper - so after my parents checked into their hotel, we made the drive to Snowmass, did grocery shopping, and tried to find food here instead. There wasn't much (the only nice-looking restaurant in "town" was full), so after a bit of drama wandering around we took what we could get (an Austrian restaurant that was passable), and I was dropped off in my condo while my parents went back to Aspen.
The next day my parents departed and the meeting began in earnest. Without the benefit of a car, I'd have to take the bus back and forth between the Center for Physics in Aspen each day, and although the bus was thankfully free it is a 40-45 minute commute and comes only every 30 minutes, so compared to previous workshops I was burning a lot of time just on the back-and-forth.
I also have had far less time to work (or even to network) than I've hoped - the travels and recent deadlines before this trip, the student projects burden I'm shouldering this summer (three MSc students and three PhD students, all who need advice and meetings), and a remote talk at a different conference I agreed to do for some reason took up a lot of time, and particularly in comparison to previous visits I've been feeling perenially behind the whole time I'm here.
Still, as always, it's been extremely nice. My main collaborator is here (as are some occasional-collaborators, occasional-competitors), and a lot of theorists who are very very knowledgeable about things in general - so talking to them in person on a regular basis has been very useful. I've leared quite a bit in the sessions (and even more outside of the sessions), and am definitely much better networked to many of the key experts. I'll end up on at least two new papers because of this meeting, and (outside my incessant meetings and e-mails) I did at least get some work done.
And of course there are the mountains. I haven't done as many outdoors activities as I might like: partly due to lack of car, partly because I had a talk to prepare the first weekend, and partly because I'm in Snowmass and somewhat cutoff from being able to do weekday activities with others in mornings or afternoons. But I've still done some things.
The first weekend I just did a couple short hikes based out of my condo: one up over into the East Snowmass Creek drainage, and another just to the top of the ridge above the north side of Brush Creek Valley. The second weekend I was more ambitious: on Saturday I convinced my roommate and an old grad school classmate to take a 15-mile hike through the wilderness, starting directly from the condo and continuing all the way up East Snowmass Creek, then over two high passes before descending into the Maroon Bells area, which was served by a shuttle that returns to Aspen. The next day I was planning just to rest and get caught up on work, but my roommate was extremely enthusiastic about taking the bus down the valley to Glenwood Springs in order to visit an amusement park there... which I wasn't extremely excited about (I have been to an amusement park only once in the past 20 years, and it was for a wedding) but decided to come along anyway. The park was small and didn't have any really spectacular attractions, but it was certainly enough to keep entertained for a few hours. (But the real highlight of the day was going to a really great microbrewery bar and then a local bar afterwards.)
Speaking of my roommate, an unexpected plus of this meeting has been a nearly-ideal roommate match. Usually I've been assigned to a large condo with four bedrooms and thus other roommates, and because this makes things kind of crowded I would usually just stick to my room and not interact with the others much if at all. My condo this year (while far off in Snowmass) is smaller and only fits two, and my assigned roommate is someone I know, someone very easy to deal with (low drama), and someone who is very keen on doing things: he threw a handmade-pizza party here for the whole workshop the first weekend, and arranged a trip to a local cinema to watch the silly new Alien movie last Friday, followed by dinner/beer at a local brewpub. (Memorably, after that as he and I were returning to the condo we passed by an art gallery that was having some fancy open reception, and waltzed in and hobnobbed for a while with the wacky Aspen social scene while drinking free drinks with silver foil in them, eyeing the insane "artwork" of Looney Tunes characters smoking blunts on the walls. An experience.)
Alas, the time has flown by, and on Saturday morning I'll be off to the final stop on this extremely lengthy summer trip.
My parents drove me up here just under three weeks ago, reaching town mid-afternoon on Saturday. The original hope was that we'd be able to check into my condo, go grocery shopping in town, and then have a nice dinner; then my parents would spend a night in a hotel and leave the next morning. This plan was complicated (as a number of things about this trip have been complicated) by the fact that I was assigned a residence in Snowmass, which is a ski area development 30 minute drive from Aspen proper - so after my parents checked into their hotel, we made the drive to Snowmass, did grocery shopping, and tried to find food here instead. There wasn't much (the only nice-looking restaurant in "town" was full), so after a bit of drama wandering around we took what we could get (an Austrian restaurant that was passable), and I was dropped off in my condo while my parents went back to Aspen.
The next day my parents departed and the meeting began in earnest. Without the benefit of a car, I'd have to take the bus back and forth between the Center for Physics in Aspen each day, and although the bus was thankfully free it is a 40-45 minute commute and comes only every 30 minutes, so compared to previous workshops I was burning a lot of time just on the back-and-forth.
I also have had far less time to work (or even to network) than I've hoped - the travels and recent deadlines before this trip, the student projects burden I'm shouldering this summer (three MSc students and three PhD students, all who need advice and meetings), and a remote talk at a different conference I agreed to do for some reason took up a lot of time, and particularly in comparison to previous visits I've been feeling perenially behind the whole time I'm here.
Still, as always, it's been extremely nice. My main collaborator is here (as are some occasional-collaborators, occasional-competitors), and a lot of theorists who are very very knowledgeable about things in general - so talking to them in person on a regular basis has been very useful. I've leared quite a bit in the sessions (and even more outside of the sessions), and am definitely much better networked to many of the key experts. I'll end up on at least two new papers because of this meeting, and (outside my incessant meetings and e-mails) I did at least get some work done.
And of course there are the mountains. I haven't done as many outdoors activities as I might like: partly due to lack of car, partly because I had a talk to prepare the first weekend, and partly because I'm in Snowmass and somewhat cutoff from being able to do weekday activities with others in mornings or afternoons. But I've still done some things.
The first weekend I just did a couple short hikes based out of my condo: one up over into the East Snowmass Creek drainage, and another just to the top of the ridge above the north side of Brush Creek Valley. The second weekend I was more ambitious: on Saturday I convinced my roommate and an old grad school classmate to take a 15-mile hike through the wilderness, starting directly from the condo and continuing all the way up East Snowmass Creek, then over two high passes before descending into the Maroon Bells area, which was served by a shuttle that returns to Aspen. The next day I was planning just to rest and get caught up on work, but my roommate was extremely enthusiastic about taking the bus down the valley to Glenwood Springs in order to visit an amusement park there... which I wasn't extremely excited about (I have been to an amusement park only once in the past 20 years, and it was for a wedding) but decided to come along anyway. The park was small and didn't have any really spectacular attractions, but it was certainly enough to keep entertained for a few hours. (But the real highlight of the day was going to a really great microbrewery bar and then a local bar afterwards.)
Speaking of my roommate, an unexpected plus of this meeting has been a nearly-ideal roommate match. Usually I've been assigned to a large condo with four bedrooms and thus other roommates, and because this makes things kind of crowded I would usually just stick to my room and not interact with the others much if at all. My condo this year (while far off in Snowmass) is smaller and only fits two, and my assigned roommate is someone I know, someone very easy to deal with (low drama), and someone who is very keen on doing things: he threw a handmade-pizza party here for the whole workshop the first weekend, and arranged a trip to a local cinema to watch the silly new Alien movie last Friday, followed by dinner/beer at a local brewpub. (Memorably, after that as he and I were returning to the condo we passed by an art gallery that was having some fancy open reception, and waltzed in and hobnobbed for a while with the wacky Aspen social scene while drinking free drinks with silver foil in them, eyeing the insane "artwork" of Looney Tunes characters smoking blunts on the walls. An experience.)
Alas, the time has flown by, and on Saturday morning I'll be off to the final stop on this extremely lengthy summer trip.