I recently attended the Volcano Conference in Bioorganic Chemistry at Pack Forest (February 22-24),…read moreand I have to say that I had a great time!
Pack Forest is a short drive away from Eatonville, located in a gorgeous area of forest. It's a ~45 minute drive away from the Mt. Rainier National Park, which offers cross country skiing, showshoeing, and other winter activities.
Pack Forest has a great set of overnight accommodations. They have 10 cabins which can sleep 8, dorm style rooms that can sleep 4-6, and apartments and houses boasting private rooms. I stayed in one of the dorm rooms above the dining hall, which had two desks and 3 sets of bunk beds. The beds were comfortable enough, and each room was stocked with fresh towels. Plug in outlets were a bit tricky to find, but I managed to find two in the room. It's no 5 star accommodation, but it's cozy. The dorm I stayed in had 3 showers (one with a locking door) and two bathroom stalls on the lower level. Everything was pretty clean, although I'd still recommend bringing a pair of shower shoes.
For a conference venue, Pack Forest is great. We had all of our talks in Scott Hall, a roomy cabin with plenty of tables and chairs, a nice screen for powerpoint, and wifi! The wifi connection wasn't the fastest, but it was nice to check email over the weekend, especially since half of the conference attendees were from Canada and had no American data plan. We held our poster session in one of the Macbride meeting rooms, which had plenty of easels for posters and was really quite cozy.
The food in the dining hall is cafeteria style. For breakfast the first day, they served french toast and sausages, with plenty of yogurt, bagels, toast, and oatmeal. At coffee break, they served home-made cinnamon buns. For lunch, they served roast beef sandwiches with salad, potato chips, and ice cream! For dinner, it was a classic turkey dinner, complete with corn, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and salad, with a blueberry crumble for dessert. The second morning breakfast offered frittata with hash browns, bacon, fresh fruit, and all the extras from the previous morning. The food was okay, not great. I personally found it too rich for my tastes, but you definitely didn't leave hungry, since the portions were huge! I was a huge fan of the drink selection, which offered coffee, a huge selection of stash teas (one of my personal favorite tea brands), numi teas, and 8 different kinds of pop. The dining hall was only open until after dinner, but you could grab drinks at anytime between breakfast (8 am for us) until after 7 pm.
As for socializing, Pack Forest offers a great lodge called Pack Hall, which has a fireplace, tons of comfy couches and tables, a fridge, and a decent selection of board games and outdoor toys, including frisbee's and basketballs. It was really cozy in the evenings. There is also a huge fire pit outside which is great for a bonfire in the evening (which we definitely took advantage of).
I really enjoyed my time at Pack Forest, and I'd recommend checking it out for more laid-back conferences.