Sacramento, CA? Charlotte, NC? Albuquerque, NM? SLC? Fresno? Where should I move?

OK, so I'm a Salt Lake City local considering a move for 3-4 years of medical residency. I prefer long, moderate trad climbing, but I'm open to sport. Living in SLC, I also love skiing (mostly backcountry), alpine and ice climbing, and mountain biking. Sacramento and Charlotte are at the top of my list because of the quality of training. I would be a bit concerned about outdoor opportunities nearby in Sacramento. Tahoe 2 hours away is nice, and Yosemite 3-4 hours away is nice, but time will be tight and it would be nice to have close options for some form of outdoor activity. Charlotte offers good mountain biking really close by, amazing kayaking nearby, and pretty good, but short climbing not far away. I love Salt Lake and the amazing outdoor access (as far as the mormons, they don't really bother me; the outdoor and academic cultures are often parallel universes to the LDS culture), but considering trying somewhere new for a while before likely returning to somewhere in Utah or the intermountain west. Convince me that I want to live in Sacramento, Charlotte, or Albuquerque!

Check out the Sandia Mountains near Abq. If you like long, moderate trad, you can certainly find that there. There are also tons of small sport areas within 2 hrs.

Las Vegas. More moderate trad than any of the places you listed so far except Yosemite.

Dean,

I posted a bunch of links to discussions about living in Sacramento in this forum post:

mountainproject.com/v/movin…

Also, there is some pretty amazing mountain biking in the Sac foothills as well. However, if you live in midtown or nearby, which is likely what you will do given the UCD hospital location, then the good mtn. biking will be about an hour away. To be honest though, I know a bunch of hospital folks at various points in their careers that lived and climbed in the Sac area and balancing getting outside and work was never a problem. No offense to Charlotte, but I don't understand how this would even be a choice if you are a climber because the Sierra are just so fricking amazing. I miss the climbing there constantly and I live in Boulder!!

Also, just FYI, the climbing near Fresno is also utterly incredible, but Fresno is sort of a hellish dump (though not as bad as the wasteland that is Las Vegas). I would choose it over Charlotte or NM (I have lived in NM by the way), but Sac is certainly a nicer place to live. I can't comment on SLC though.

Personally I would stay in SLC if you can. Going to be hard to beat.

Thanks for all the info everyone. Actually going to be spending some time in the Sandias this weekend. I've heard good things. Las Vegas isn't an option for what I'm looking at. J, thanks for the links! Clearly I'm not the first to consider living and playing in Sac! Charlotte would be primarily for the training I would get there; I would definitely be taking a hit in the climbing department (and skiing), although the paddling is fantastic out there. Agreed that Fresno being 2 hours from Yosemite is stellar, but the city itself is, well, lacking... Josh, I think SLC is the place to be considering access to recreation alone, but this is also a nice time to check out somewhere new and mix up the mountain scene a little bit. It's a hard place to leave though...
Thanks again for the thoughts!

ER residency? I trained in Fresno and the program there is really amazing. You're right that Fresno as a city is a dump. But I got out climbing all the time. We did day trips to Yosemite, 2-3 day trips to Vegas, J Tree, Tahquitz, Tahoe, Needles. And there's a ton of new stuff at Shuteye Ridge. I also did multiple courses towards the Diploma in Mountain Medicine as part of my 4th year elective. And I did a 6-week elective in Chamonix. So if you're doing ER residency, I highly recommend Fresno. There are other good programs there, like Surgery, but time off is much more limited and you'd probably be better off in a place like SLC where stuff it literally right out the door.

Oh, and we did most of the classic alpine routes in the Sierra during residency too.