Why do you live in CO?

Chemtrails, but you have them too, so bully for you.

I hate it. Too many people, too hot. Too many climbers at the crags.
Too far to walk to the Diamond. Too far to drive to Moab, the Winds, and Yosemite. Knot enough water.

Steve Williams wrote:I hate it. Too many people, too hot. Too many climbers at the crags. Too far to walk to the Diamond. Too far to drive to Moab, the Winds, and Yosemite. Knot enough water.

If I knot enough water, will it hold better than a bowline or figure eight? Is that called a water knot?

J Miles I am in a very similar predicament. I am stuck in an even more boring area of Upstate NY and my college career is quickly coming to a close. I was unsure about my direction after school and it has become even more difficult. I was able to spend last summer working in Aspen and climbing in the Front Range / Elks. Three months was more than enough to show me that the move and risks associated with it would be more than worth it. If youre anything like me, its more the people that are the deal-maker. NY has the Dacks and the Gunks, plus Vermont and New Hampshire are nearby. Theres enough climbing there to last a lifetime. Such cannot be said for the people. I have lived in Rochester for all my life and it has become apparent that most people around here are concerned about themselves first, and their personal status second. This runs very contrary to almost everyone I ran into or met in Colorado. Every bar that I went into I could have a conversation with nearly every person in it. There wasn't a bunch of beefcakes tanned to burnt orange running around trying to pick up chicks and fist pump. In CO, if you want to be a bum for life and spend your time climbing and enjoying the outdoors, you are a regular. In NY, you're a bum. Living and working in Rochester I find myself scowling to keep all the a**holes away. In Colorado I found myself with a shiteating grin on my face every single day.

Another aspect to consider is long term outlook. Education in upstate NY is pretty damn good, especially where I grew up. Not to say that education in Colorado is bad, but there are many more smaller, more distantly located school districts. Depends on how you want to raise your brats (if you want them at all.) Where I grew up in NY was never more than about 20 minutes to urban locales, big stores and normal people. In CO, this kind of drive could be substantial. Even from Aspen it was about 40 minutes to Glenwood and roughly 4 hours to Denver.

Job markets can also be a little bit more difficult in Colorado. Some of my friends have been slightly disuaded by the lack of jobs in specific professions. Plus, everyone and their brother wants to move to COlorado now so competition is tight. That being said, wages tend to be a little better. As you are from NY, I am sure you are aware of the difference in taxes so I won't talk about that.

If you are struggling to decide where to settle, I would reccomend trying to spend some more time in Colorado before making your decision. I've spent a ton of time in NY, especially in the Dacks, and I love it. However, Colorado really is the better place for me. I'm going back for another 3 months this summer and am already hunting for a place to move near Boulder after next Christmas. I could go on and on about what I think are the even more subtle advantages of CO (lack of black flies) but really its a toss up. Good luck man I hope you find what you are looking for.

Because I get one if not the most doses of radiation in America..both from the sun and the large deposits of uranium .

I live here because of destiny.

Didn't choose it per se, it just happened

now, inertia

No complaints. Very happy here

I know this is a CO thread, but what about Albuquerque / Santa Fe. You have the Labs, e.g. Sandia and Los Alamos, and a few other high tech manufacturing such as Intel. The climbing is not bad and southern Colorado is just up the road. Underated I say.

I ended up in Durango due to my job. I had never considered living in Colorado long term prior to the job. I don't regret it. This town has everything I could ask for in a place to live. I'm not terribly excited about my current representation in congress but those things change over time.

I moved to Denver after biking across the country, passing through Colorado, and falling in love with it. It's the best place to work, play, and live.

I dumped a stripper in Austin and they don't like that too much, so I moved to Boulder and just never left.

Thanks for your response Brandon!

Brandon Howard wrote:Such cannot be said for the people. I have lived in Rochester for all my life and it has become apparent that most people around here are concerned about themselves first, and their personal status second. This runs very contrary to almost everyone I ran into or met in Colorado. Every bar that I went into I could have a conversation with nearly every person in it.

This reminded me of a jaw dropping experience that my wife and I had while buying groceries in Estes Park last March. After we finished paying for our 2-3 bags worth of food the lady who had bagged our food (probably in her 40s) asked us if we would like help taking our bags to our car. I was totally shocked because I don't think I've ever had anyone offer to do that before. Even more shocking was that she would ask 2 healthy looking people in their early 20s that question when they only had 2-3 bags. That experience combined with the view that I saw from the parking lot made me consider moving to CO even more.

J Miles wrote:Thanks for your response Brandon! This reminded me of a jaw dropping experience that my wife and I had while buying groceries in Estes Park last March. After we finished paying for our 2-3 bags worth of food the lady who had bagged our food (probably in her 40s) asked us if we would like help taking our bags to our car. I was totally shocked because I don't think I've ever had anyone offer to do that before. Even more shocking was that she would ask 2 healthy looking people in their early 20s that question when they only had 2-3 bags. That experience combined with the view that I saw from the parking lot made me consider moving to CO even more.

Yea man I was blown away by how nice everyone is out there. Any person is willing to take time out of their day to help you for a few minutes or answer a question. Quote the opposite of NY.

A few reasons why I love living in CO..
1. As much as people love to talk about how much Boulderites are assholes, I've had nothing but the opposite experience in the 3 years I have been here. Perhaps the pro climbers and uber fit are a bit intimidating so it's easy to call them cocky asshats, but I've found that once you start a conversation, it's been a pleasure for the most part. Coming from the MD/DC/VA area, those asshats are far worse and more prevalent.
2. A high concentration of trails for running and biking. Getting around here is easy and relatively safe. The trails are awesome.
3. Climbing year round is possible, but skiing is usually awaesome in the winter... except this past winter, but still tons better than most places.
4. Some of the best restaurants and breweries in a small concentrated place. Nuff said.
5. People have a priority to be fit and outside. This breeds a community fostering athletics and fitness. Perhaps a bit over the top at times, but it helps you get your butt outside on those days when you would in many other places not have that same pull.
6. The warm, dry weather rocks. Even in the hotness of the summer, it's dry enough to go out for a run.
7. Close to RMNP, the Wind River Range, Moab, Jackson Hole (ok, 8 hours or so), Salt Lake... etc
8. If you're into gambling, it's fun to hit up Blackhawk now and then.
9. Great climbing. A bunch of different areas close by and far away. Some of the best alpine bouldering in the country, and still a ton more to develop...

One of my Dad's friends and climbing partners is a science teacher at a private Boulder high school. Their facility was in financial trouble this last year and may have had to shut down. Despite decades of experience he was literally looking at moving to Central America to teach for a couple years before he retires because he was convinced there was no way he could get another decent job on the Front Range. I have also heard from other teachers in the area there are 50-100 applicants for every open position.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from moving here, I think the only other place I would want to live is Taos, NM, but the teaching jobs will probably be an issue. At least at first.

+1 to everything Jeff Chrisler said. With regard to teaching job availability, it depends on the district, but it is pretty competitive right now. It is true that in some districts you do have to submit upwards of 50 applications to get a job. There is always a demand for experienced teachers who have the data to show that they get great results, though.

After reading through all of these awesome posts and comparing CO to upstate NY the weather seems to be the most important difference for me. Looking at weather data from sites like city-data.com the weather doesn't look that different, but I have a feeling that I'm either missing something when looking at the data, or the two are actually closer that I think. The biggest differences that I see is that CO is less humid and has more sunny days (temps seem comparable).

Can anyone who has spent a large amount of time in both areas let me know how the two compare?

Also, what % of the time do you find yourself staying inside because of the weather due to rain, sleet, heat, humidity...? A good follow up to this question is how tolerant are you to these adverse conditions (if you don't mind the rain or heat then you will obviously be outside more than those who do)?

Thanks again everyone!

J Miles wrote:Also, what % of the time do you find yourself staying inside because of the weather due to rain, sleet, heat, humidity...? A good follow up to this question is how tolerant are you to these adverse conditions (if you don't mind the rain or heat then you will obviously be outside more than those who do)?

Heat and humidity are not really problems. 100+ degree days in Denver are reasonable at shady crags, even more so if you head to higher elevation crags. During the winter, crags that get a lot of sun are usually climbable.

Rain and sleet are rarely a problem. Storms are usually short and the rock dries out very quickly.

The Beer... Oh and the Mountains too, I guess...

J Miles wrote:After reading through all of these awesome posts and comparing CO to upstate NY the weather seems to be the most important difference for me. Looking at weather data from sites like city-data.com the weather doesn't look that different, but I have a feeling that I'm either missing something when looking at the data, or the two are actually closer that I think. The biggest differences that I see is that CO is less humid and has more sunny days (temps seem comparable). Can anyone who has spent a large amount of time in both areas let me know how the two compare? Also, what % of the time do you find yourself staying inside because of the weather due to rain, sleet, heat, humidity...? A good follow up to this question is how tolerant are you to these adverse conditions (if you don't mind the rain or heat then you will obviously be outside more than those who do)? Thanks again everyone!

I lived in Ontario, Canada for 20+ years (close enough to upstate NY), been in Colorado for 1 year.

Before moving here I tried looking through all of the weather data I could to try to see the "real picture". The data didn't tell me anything, and on paper it didn't seem that fantastic (I was coming from California at the time).

BUT, once you live here, you get it. The lack of humidity makes everything better. Back in Ontario, summer days would often be "80 degrees, 105 degrees with the humidex", and the only way to avoid the heat and sweating would be to go inside and find AC (or go swimming). There's no such thing as "humidex" here: even on the hottest days, finding some shade and a slight breeze will drop your temperature drastically. The hottest part of the day is the afternoon, and again due to the lack of humidity the morning/evening temperatures drop quite a bit, so what might be uncomfortable in the afternoon can be very pleasant in the morning or evening. While our AC would be blasting 24/7 in Ontario, we rarely turned ours on last summer in CO, usually relying on fans + moving to cooler parts of the house.

How often does the weather prevent me from getting outside? Almost never, and I'm definitely not the "do it despite the weather" kind of guy. Even on the 100+ degree days last year I could still go mountain biking if I hit the trails in the morning. Since the start of March I've probably been outside 45 days between biking, hiking, and climbing. The summer brings some afternoon thunderstorms, but they usually don't stick around too long and you can still be outside before/after one comes. I biked to work almost every day last summer and probably only got caught in a light rain maybe half a dozen times.

Oh yeah, and don't forget about the elevation: when it might be super hot in town at 5000ft, a hike up in RMNP above 10,000ft could easily be 20 degrees cooler.

One other personal thing I've noticed improve by living in a dry climate is that I can be closer to my wife, too. When there's humidity and you're all sweaty and sticky, human, skin-to-skin contact is the last thing you want. When the humidity and sweat drop, the lovin goes up.

J Miles wrote: Can anyone who has spent a large amount of time in both areas let me know how the two compare? Also, what % of the time do you find yourself staying inside because of the weather due to rain, sleet, heat, humidity...? A good follow up to this question is how tolerant are you to these adverse conditions (if you don't mind the rain or heat then you will obviously be outside more than those who do)?

I grew up in Denver and then lived way upstate in NY for a few years (near the Thousand Islands region).

As I recall, upstate NY probably got just about the same amount of snow as Denver, but... once it fell in NY it stuck around and compounded. Whereas in Denver, the snow melted after a few days and the sun was back out. Overall winters seemed longer and a bit greyer in NY -- due to climate and higher latitude; so Colorado seemed quite a bit sunnier to me, even in winter.

Agree with the Ian above (he must be cool if his name is Ian), Denver is drier, humidity-wise, so I also think this makes it seem not as cold or hot as places with higher humidity. But regardless, Denver does get much hotter in the summer than NY.

Finally, it seems to rain more in NY (guess that figures from all the lakes and rivers in NY, and the droughts in CO).

For context, I get out and about in all temps and locations, just switching sports based on geography and weather conditions.

Hope this helps, good luck!