we did a short trip to pyramid island, a small island on pyramid lake. it features a path for a short walk, with beautiful views on the lake. a squirrel was there, too.

patricia lake.

we stayed in some bungalows near to lake patricia. here are some impressions from the lake:

wildlife.

during our stay in jasper, we also encountered some wildlife besides to the wulf and the mountain goats we saw on the trip here:

last weekend, i visited jasper a second time; this time with a couple of coworkers, to have a few days of vacation. last thursday, we drove up the icefields parkway to jasper. here are some impressions from the drive:

last weekend, i was in banff. again. this time, i attended a weekend conference at the birs, the alberta number theory days. since it was just a short visit, there wasn’t much time to look around. nonetheless, here are some impressions from the banff centre and its surroundings. note that the lightening conditions weren’t very good as i took the photos in the evening.

the deer was grazing on the banff centre grounds; one sees “wild” animals roaming around there rather often. they tend to pretty much ignore humans, but you shouldn’t feed or touch them. one morning, i could see an elk walking around from my room’s window. i don’t have a photo of it, though.

after attending the joint mathematics meetings in san francisco, i want to share two points you should not try to copy when you’re organizing a conference.

• in case you have a lot of parallel sessions, try to schedule sessions with similar topics in parallel. this minimizes the number of days people from these areas have to attend the conference.
• promise wireless internet, but do not provide a backbone which can handle this. after noticing it is too slow, simply turn it off for the rest of the conference.
• this applies more to conference center owners. do not install power plugs anywhere near to areas where tables and seats are placed. and by any means, never install power plugs in rooms where talks are held.

people will really appreciate this and regard your conference as one of the best ever.

last weekend, it was rather cold outside, and pretty white. i did a walk to the nose hill park, enjoying the beautiful snowscape as well as the icy wind. here are some impressions.

it’s white outside. for a couple of days now. after a few white days during october, and rather warm temperaturs during most of november, the coldness finally returned, and with it the whiteness. an unfortunate companion of snow is ice, and by now, there’s plenty of it. mostly on sidewalks, sometimes on the roads. let’s see when the next chinook is coming.

on one of the last days, we did a small trip to calgary’s nose hill park, where i have been before as well. here are a few impressions:

one of the most beautiful parts of our trip was the drive south the icefields parkway, connecting jasper to lake louise. here are a few impressions from our stops. we wanted to drive up mount edith cavell as well, but the road was closed.

astoria river bridge and athabasca river.

a beautiful lake and the athabasca falls.

mountains, and the columbia icefield.

our car, and the upper waterfowl lake.

the bow lake and the crowfoot glacier.

lake louise.

after two days in vancouver, we rented a car and drove up to the beautiful town of jasper. from there, we visited, among others, patricia lake, pyramid lake and maligne lake, whose photos can be found below as well as a photo taken at a rest stop somewhere north of kamloops.