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Move to Bend? Boulder? Flagstaff?

Original Post
E Larson · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jul 2014 · Points: 0

My wife and I are looking for a specific city. Being climbers, we have certain needs:)

We are looking to move from Boise and are pretty spoiled with climbing here. We have narrowed our searched based on city size, climbing and jobs.

I have a couple questions on each city.

Boulder- Winter climbing? (ease of traveling to Utah in winter?) Traffic? Housing for 300k?

Bend- Smiths is cool, but are there closer crags? Quality? What is life like in Bend?

Flagstaff- I have heard there is limestone, sandstone and basalt. Quality of each? What is close to town? How far?

Thanks for all of your help. Please do not suggest Utah. Mormons are nice, but........ I like my craft beer and my sanity. I would like feedback on these specific cities.

Eliot Augusto · · Lafayette, CO · Joined Dec 2013 · Points: 60

Traffic sucks, but you can easily get your daily travel done on bike or bus. Good luck finding a home for 300k. I'm not in the market so don't truly know the house prices, but the property across from us recently sold for 650, and the residential lot I work on is up for 1.5. Sooooooooooo...yeah. Take it or leave it.

Oh, And anyone that says the climbing season ends in Boulder is wrong and terrified of a snow filled approach. The climbing is dry for a lot of winter.

John Ryan · · Poncha Springs, CO · Joined Aug 2012 · Points: 170

There is a place called Cougar Crag that is a little closer to Bend than Smith. I think Bend is pretty awesome. The people are friendly and in my opinion the beer is the best on the planet. Throw in the rivers and the local volcano and it's even better. The vibe in Bend seems much more laid back than Boulder. There's definitely more variety of climbs in Boulder and with the Canyon it's easy to get on rock quickly.

JCM · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Jun 2008 · Points: 115
E Larson wrote: Boulder- Winter climbing? (ease of traveling to Utah in winter?) Traffic? Housing for 300k?
Winter climbing is pretty good. Even in mid-winter, you can usually climb locally on ~50% of days. More if you're willing to suffer a bit. Winter climbing in the sun in Eldo is fantastic (I don't know how anyone climbs there in the summer...). South-facing crags dry out in a day or two after storms. Good winter bouldering too. When it is too cold/snowy in Boulder, a 3 hour drive to Shelf Road gives you wonderful winter desert conditions.

Driving to Utah in the winter is pretty reasoanble, from a snow perspective; just don't go on a day when it is storming. A bigger issue is dealing with the I-70 ski traffic; it truly is horrible.

Traffic can be rough going in/out of Boulder, but the city is small enough that if you work and live in town you can get anywhere pretty quickly. Living out in the suburbs (Westminster, etc.) and commuting in to Boulder might suck.

Buying a house in Boulder for 300k would be difficult. How do you feel about cardboard boxes?

I won't reccomend Utah (as you mention), but within Colorado, have you thought about Grand Junction? If you want access to desert climbing, but fear Mormon,s GJ might be a good choice. The town is a bit of a junkshow, but the climbing access is top-notch. Housing costs are way less than Boulder.

E Larson wrote: Flagstaff- I have heard there is limestone, sandstone and basalt. Quality of each? What is close to town? How far?
Tons of great climbing on all of those rock types, and more (Dacite), although the sandstone can be soft and chossy. Year round climbing. Lots of rock very very close to town. Difficult employment situation.
J. Broussard · · CordryCorner · Joined Feb 2011 · Points: 50

Unless you have a TON of cash, this is a terrible time to move to Boulder.
Home prices have NEVER been higher.

I've been working on all of the one handed boulder problems on Flagstaff Mountain because I had to sell the other arm to stay in this beautiful city.

Eliot Augusto · · Lafayette, CO · Joined Dec 2013 · Points: 60
J. Broussard wrote:Unless you have a TON of cash, this is a terrible time to move to Boulder. Home prices have NEVER been higher. I've been working on all of the one handed boulder problems on Flagstaff Mountain because I had to sell the other arm to stay in this beautiful city.
Right? I feel like I'm living the dirtbag lifestyle, but in an apartment. I will move to eldo or Ned after this lease is up.

OP: Longmont might be a reasonable alternative. Much cheaper, 30 minutes to several awesome canyons. 60 to Estes and CCC.
Jacob Dolence · · Farmville, VA · Joined Jun 2006 · Points: 806

Flagstaff is pretty great.

Sandstone is great in spots chossy in others, but the good stuff is really good, and the choss is fun. There is sandstone bouldering 20 minutes from town and good sandstone towers in Sedona 40 minutes away. Some of it has varnish like red rocks, some is as soft as the fischer towers, and some is splitter and solid like indian creek. Lots of exploring!

Basalt bouldering in town in multiple locations, great basalt trad and mixed within 30 minutes of town.

Dacite, we have lots of this and it is great in some spots and awful in others, everything from bouldering to trad and sport multipitch in town.

Limestone, some of the best limestone bouldering in the country within 20 minutes of town. Multiple limestone sport areas ranging from 20 minute drive to an hour.

Granite- in about an hour and a half you can be in prescott which has amazing granite trad and sport.

3.5 hours to red rocks
5 hours to indian creek
5 hours to zion
5 hours to Cochise
5 hours to durango area for alpine

The best part about the climbing in Flagstaff is that it is truly year round. Not year round as in sufferfest, but as in you can find comfortable temps to climb in almost everyday of the year within an hour. The second best part is that you don't have to wait in line most of the time like you have to in Bend or Boulder. Most days I climb I only see two or three other parties unless it's a busy weekend.

Also Flagstaff is pretty awesome for craft beer, as are the other cities you mentioned. The cool thing about Flagstaff is that it is close to San Diego, so we get a lot of great beer you can't find elsewhere from Stone, Alesmith, etc... Also we seem to get a lot of great beer from the East Coast that is not coming to Colorado, don't know why, but I think we have a better beer selection here than in Fort Collins or Boulder. We have a lot of up and coming breweries, and the prices are cheaper than Bend or Boulder.

All that being said, I lived in Idaho for four years before moving to Flagstaff, and I still miss City of Rocks, all the stuff in McCall, and all the backcountry crags of Idaho.

Scott McMahon · · Boulder, CO · Joined Feb 2006 · Points: 1,425
J. Broussard wrote:Unless you have a TON of cash, this is a terrible time to move to Boulder. Home prices have NEVER been higher. I've been working on all of the one handed boulder problems on Flagstaff Mountain because I had to sell the other arm to stay in this beautiful city.
Renting market is insane too...took the GF like a month to find a reasonable priced / non-shithole 2 bedroom. I find a place and stay. Be ready to write a check on the spot or lose your place.

But I love boulder for all it's faults.
matt c. · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Nov 2009 · Points: 155

OP- might want to consider golden. Its a nice town. It is pretty close to boulder, denver, I-70(the highway to the mountains) and climbing( eldo, clear creek, boulder canyon, north table). There is a light rail station to get into downtown denver. It also has a great selection of delicious microbrews. And a most importantly you'll never have to drink boulder's kool-aid.

matt c. · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Nov 2009 · Points: 155

also, in terms of winter in the front range climbing eldo is great! you can climb in the sun once the snow melts. Also, north table is a great outside 'climbing gym' in the winter. It tends to be 10-15 degrees warmer then in golden. It is not uncommon to be able to climb there a day or two after a snow storm.

Jack Hereford · · Tucson, AZ · Joined Nov 2012 · Points: 125

Flagstaff has a very diverse amount of rock, from hard limestone roofs to brilliant dacite/ andacite and of course some really chossy sandstone which you learn to enjoyably tolerate after a few excursions. Theres 20+ different areas all within 10-45 min drives from town. Honestly though, Flagstaff shines in its climbing community. With 3 1/2 (university wall is the 1/2) gyms throughout a town of 80,000 it's a very large climber to non-climber ratio for the size. People are very friendly if you are and will treat you with respect if you approach them honestly. You'll fall in love with it quickly. Just look at the Flagstaff Climbing Centers main street bouldering gym...

Cheers

Marc801 C · · Sandy, Utah · Joined Feb 2014 · Points: 65
E Larson wrote:Please do not suggest Utah. Mormons are nice, but........ I like my craft beer and my sanity.
I won't suggest Utah if you stop perpetuating incorrect stereotypes. Deal?
Wiled Horse · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2002 · Points: 3,669
E Larson wrote:jobs.
what do each of you plan to do for work?
Andy Laakmann · · Bend, OR · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 1,990

Are you and your wife thinking of having kids? If so, Bend is an AWESOME family town with great schools... and if kids are on the horizon in the next 3-5 years... then you absolutely should add that parameter into the mix.

As a place to raise a family, enjoy a high quality of life, AND recreate.. all with a reasonable cost of living... I'm not sure Bend can be beat. Sure you can get better "fill-in-the-blank" elsewhere.... but Bend has a wide scope of offerings that are all pretty darn good.

Bend climbing gives you Smith and Trout Creek (+ some bouldering) most the year. That's it. But together they offer a lifetime of climbing and are awesome home crags IMO. We travel four times a year for "other" climbing - i.e. granite, etc.

Beyond climbing... I can mountain bike from my door 9 months a year (on hundreds of miles of kick ass trails), and be skiing (skate or downhill) in 30 minutes. All without crowds. Boulder mountain biking is minimal without driving, and access to the skiing is very poor (2+ hour drive).

My wife and I picked Bend after an exhaustive search of all the usual possibilities... and we had the ability to live anywhere we wanted. And Bend has surpassed all of our expectations.

ps. And we just had a big new gym built in town... which is a huge bonus.

Wiled Horse · · Unknown Hometown · Joined Dec 2002 · Points: 3,669

Are there engineering jobs in Bend that you would know of, Andy?

EDIT: still waitin' for a call from Metolius ;)

Jon Rhoderick · · Redmond, OR · Joined Jul 2009 · Points: 966

I'll bite for Bend
- if you like craft beer, your set! Good life, 10 barrel, cascade brewing, crux are all bomb. I wouldn't consider Deschutes 'micro' but it's also incredible. All these beers are readily available in almost any restaurant or eatery

-rent for single bedroom starts around $700 so that's better than boulder

-smith is maybe 35minutes away, there is bouldering in town, a few small crags as well, but Smith is really head and shoulders above them. Plus trout. A good friend of mine who lives in CO told me while CO has a lot more rock, it doesn't have any crags he considers to be AS good as smith & trout.

-mid June to end of August are not ideal weather for climbing, the other 9.5 months are golden. Of you can get out early there are sending temps all year round, and maybe only 14 days out of the year are truly unclimbable.

-the community here is pretty strong and very supportive, it's easy to find friends and rides to these areas.

-jobs are a little cruxy here. If you have retail, waiting, engineering, medical, exp. I'd say go for it. If not you might have a tough time getting established.

Feel free to pm me any questions & good luck.

Andy Laakmann · · Bend, OR · Joined Jan 2001 · Points: 1,990
Mr. Stevens wrote:After climbing at City of Rocks and the Elephant's Perch for a few weeks this summer I don't know why you'd leave Idaho...
They're great places, but both have pretty short seasons... even the City of Rocks believe it or not.
Kelly P · · The Bubble, CO · Joined Oct 2011 · Points: 10

I really like Boulder, HOWEVER like any place, it has its drawbacks.

IMHO they are:
Lots of pretentious jerks who can't drive
Housing market is insane. We purchased a townhome last August but man was the search hard. Anything under 350k gets bought out in cash by investors so you lose out on nearly all of those.
Ski traffic sucks
Lots of cyclists who think they own the road(ie: ride three astride in traffic and then get nasty when you can't give them their three feet of clearance...)

However there are more pros than cons imo....you really can't beat the amount of climbing in a 1 hour radius, you just can't. Even Utah and Wyoming are super close all things considered(Joes is about 6-7 hours). Our weather is pretty decent, you can easily climb year round. We have an insane amount of climbing gyms. The restaurant/food scene is awesome as well. The schools are great and so is the job market.

That being said, I have not ever been to Flagstaff or Bend, so I am sure they have plenty of awesome stuff to offer as well!

Aaron Bertalmio 1 · · Reno, Nevada · Joined Feb 2014 · Points: 0

look in to Reno - low cost of living, cheap housing, 9 months a year of climbing (donner, lover's leap), no state tax. Plus Yosemite in the summer, i can make it to tuolumne meadows in 3 hours and the valley in 4.

Guideline #1: Don't be a jerk.

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