Tell Me About Living in Seattle

My wife took a job working in downtown Seattle, so we are packing our bags and leaving good ole Missoula, Montana come May. Her priority is being able to take public transit to and from work, or possibly bike. My priority is access to the mountains for climbing and skiing :p.  After doing some digging and talking to friends, it seems like North Seattle is a pretty good compromise for her commute to work and my need to get over to Index/Stevens Pass/North Cascades. Does this seem like a correct statement to you Seattle Locals?

Is there anywhere else we should consider aside from North Seattle? Also any helpful info would be greatly appreciated!

Also, feel compelled to post, if anyone is looking to fill a room with some like minded people come May/June....Hit me up!!

If I were you and your okay with an apartment I would look in actual seattle. North seattle is actually maybe worse for index and stevens pass from a traffic standpoint/commute might not actually be that fun for your wife. I left the city and they rerented my unit for 6 weeks free and $150 a month discount. Easier access to I-90 better for most weekday fun, if your into that mountain fun you probably won’t want to be a exclusive weekend warrior and being 20 minutes closer to Washington pass won’t offset the other headaches of being north. Also highway 2 is an absolute nightmare and often I-90 down blewitt pass is faster to Leavenworth. If you wanna be a weekday warrior and maximize your weekends get as close to I-90 as you can. If you look at my ticklist you can see where and how much I climbed when I was based in freemont.

If your married and have decent jobs, living on the east side of lake Washington is what you want. Find something close to 405. 

You may have heard that it rains a lot (especially at Index), so commute time is top priority.

Distance to a good climbing gym is also relevant, once you have your COVID shots and they reopen.

How about your job - it is already home based?

Adam Wood wrote:

If your married and have decent jobs, living on the east side of lake Washington is what you want. Find something close to 405. 

Is the commute easier from the east side than in north Seattle? It seems like you would have to change buses, which from what I read can be a nightmare?

Mike-Mayhem wrote:

Is the commute easier from the east side than in north Seattle? It seems like you would have to change buses, which from what I read can be a nightmare?

The east side is either the worst or best. For bussing if you can get to Mercer island via car the bus/future light rail will take you the rest of the way. If you drive I-90 and 520 are far far faster than I-5 for the same driving distance. For where ever your looking to live google transit should give you a sense of practically. I still would say your over estimating the benefit to living in north seattle. Also it’s far easier to carpool with stoked young people in seattle instead of the weekend warrior trad dads in the burbs.

Also do not underestimate highway 2 traffic or traffic in general. I went bouldering on a Saturday in January and in gold bar and it took me 2 hours to get home when it’s normally 1.

Also unless you walk up 5.11 on gear while index is great you will probably want access to the exits as well.

I would give very strong priority to your wife’s comfort. Me driving an extra 20-30 minutes twice a week for climbing doesn’t compare to her driving at least that much everyday.

I've lived in the area for 20 years and lived in downtown Seattle for the last 10 years.  My recommendation would be to not live too far out or far from a light rail station if the plan is to commute into or out of downtown on a daily basis and cannot travel outside of rush hour.  My drive to work in Redmond (15mi) is easily 45min-1hr during non-pandemic times.    Seattle is really bike friendly, and they are actively making it more bike friendly, at the sacrifice of driving convenience. 

Climbing wise, I personally don't see North Seattle as any more convent than anywhere else, I find myself driving in pretty much all directions aside from west to climb, ski, etc.   If anything, I get on I-90 East quite a bit, but it's only a matter of a few minutes and living a bit further east wouldn't be impactful to the overall length of the drives I frequent. I don't particularly enjoy North Seattle's vibe...there is basically no vibe haha, so I wouldn't really recommend living there unless you already have friends in the area.

I'd say the location really depends on what you like, I'd really recommend checking out the neighborhoods before pulling the trigger on a year-long lease.  The pandemic has dramatically affected Downtown and Capital Hill, I wouldn't say living in either of those places would be amazing until things kinda return to normal, but the rent has decreased dramatically due to that.  You can score some really good rent in nice buildings in Downtown right now. The communities in the high-rise apartment buildings (all-rental buildings) are usually pretty fun- lots of people moving into the area looking to make new friends.  The condo buildings usually have older and more insular communities, which some may prefer, and also offer better bang for the buck on rent. Pioneer Square and Sodo look attractive on paper but have always been kinda gnar, and the pandemic hasn't helped. I would 100% not recommend living in Pioneer Square and Sodo for your first time in Seattle.  SLU is convenient and clean, but quite subdued.  It’s become a bit more fun during the pandemic, but it’s still a very officey area  

You can also look a little further out into the neighborhood areas.  Ballard has really taken off recently, lots of stuff to do (even during the pandemic) and has great climbing gym access.  Fremont and Greenlake also have similar vibes and are nice, but are a bit smaller.

Hope that helps! Feel free to ping me if you have any specific questions! 

A lot depends on your work schedule. I’ve lived in Seattle for 18 years and have enjoyed the climbing equally as long. I have been on the east side for three and found that getting to either I90 or highway 2 is much easier from my current location. Regarding trad dads in the burbs, that feels a little over generalized. 

Trevor Taylor wrote:

If I were you and your okay with an apartment I would look in actual seattle. North seattle is actually maybe worse for index and stevens pass from a traffic standpoint/commute might not actually be that fun for your wife. I left the city and they rerented my unit for 6 weeks free and $150 a month discount. Easier access to I-90 better for most weekday fun, if your into that mountain fun you probably won’t want to be a exclusive weekend warrior and being 20 minutes closer to Washington pass won’t offset the other headaches of being north. Also highway 2 is an absolute nightmare and often I-90 down blewitt pass is faster to Leavenworth. If you wanna be a weekday warrior and maximize your weekends get as close to I-90 as you can. If you look at my ticklist you can see where and how much I climbed when I was based in freemont.

I realize that I was misspeaking as to what North Seattle I meant. What I meant was essentially around the Green Lake Area and maybe slightly north. LOL

Mike-Mayhem wrote:

I realize that I was misspeaking as to what North Seattle I meant. What I meant was essentially around the Green Lake Area and maybe slightly north. LOL

I don’t know if you can go wrong between between Ballard, green lake, freemont, I lived next to the troll and would recommend it. I got outside maybe 120 days last year and traffic was rarely an issue in freemont. One thing to be aware of is the homeless crisis has gotten significantly worse in my last two weeks in seattle I called the cops three times. They are mostly harmless but one person threw a bike at me, one ODd in my laundry room and one taunted my dog took all their clothes and passed out.

I lived and worked downtown for 10 years it was enjoyable from west Seattle. Weekends plan.on leaving before 730am, before.the city wakes up. I live south now and stay south of i90 going to rimrock or the Olympics a lot. The commute is usually 1.5hrs if you are outside. Housing wasn't cheap, so take your time and people watch especially in the current situation. Good luck and enjoy, rent small and live outside all weekend is my advice. 

After living in Missoula (Frenchtown)for 10 years, made the biggest mistake of my life and took a promotion to work in Seattle.  Got clinically depressed and had to change companies to move out and reclaim sanity.  Now we live in Montana-light - aka Spokane -And have a life again.  When in Seattle area we lived in a subdivision near exit 6 off 405 in an area of nice homes.  20-45 min to get out of subdivision, hours to a simple destination.  Never climbed because it was so difficult to get out and back.  Had mail and Amazon stolen regularly.  Crap weather.  Never should have left MT.  You don’t know how good you got it!.  

another option would be to live near mt baker light rail station, or maybe columbia city light rail station.  easy access to downtown (via light rail), close to a bouldering gym (SBP), and easy access to I-90.  one of my co-workers lives by green lake and his commute to dowtown via the bus is usually around 45 minutes (bus schedules typically not accurate due to traffic).  this will improve when the northgate extension of the light rail is up and running, but that will be a while.

that all being said, i have to completely agree with Pete S.  we moved to seattle from denver/boulder, and it was fucking terrible.  weather, people, basically the feeling of dying every single day. i have never seen such a depressing city (except for about 10 weeks in summer when the weather isn't complete shit).  my wife is the most easy going person on earth, a literal saint.  after 3 years she said she absolutely couldn't do it anymore, and luckily we moved.

seattle is nice in the summer, but you might want to prepare yourself for the other 10 months of the year...  

Pete S wrote:

After living in Missoula (Frenchtown)for 10 years, made the biggest mistake of my life and took a promotion to work in Seattle.  Got clinically depressed and had to change companies to move out and reclaim sanity.  Now we live in Montana-light - aka Spokane -And have a life again.  When in Seattle area we lived in a subdivision near exit 6 off 405 in an area of nice homes.  20-45 min to get out of subdivision, hours to a simple destination.  Never climbed because it was so difficult to get out and back.  Had mail and Amazon stolen regularly.  Crap weather.  Never should have left MT.  You don’t know how good you got it!.  

Yeah..that sucks. Sorry to hear you had a bad experience dude! A few tips for people moving here: 

-Pretend it’s not raining when it’s raining. Get sunlight when you can during the rainy season.
-There is almost aways a place you can climb or ski, just search and be willing to drive a few hours. Between high elevations and the desert, you can do both nearly year round.
-Live in a place to avoid long commute times.
-The corporate world here is cutthroat, don’t take it too personally.
-Take an active roll in making friends, locals are known for the “Seattle freeze” phenomenon- being super friendly and saying they’ll hang, but won’t make a big effort to hang. 

slim wrote:

another option would be to live near mt baker light rail station, or maybe columbia city light rail station.  easy access to downtown (via light rail), close to a bouldering gym (SBP), and easy access to I-90.  one of my co-workers lives by green lake and his commute to dowtown via the bus is usually around 45 minutes (bus schedules typically not accurate due to traffic).  this will improve when the northgate extension of the light rail is up and running, but that will be a while.

that all being said, i have to completely agree with Pete S.  we moved to seattle from denver/boulder, and it was fucking terrible.  weather, people, basically the feeling of dying every single day. i have never seen such a depressing city (except for about 10 weeks in summer when the weather isn't complete shit).  my wife is the most easy going person on earth, a literal saint.  after 3 years she said she absolutely couldn't do it anymore, and luckily we moved.

seattle is nice in the summer, but you might want to prepare yourself for the other 10 months of the year...  

what is the access like to Hwy 2 from the Mt Baker area? I’ll be trying to get a flexible job so I can ski during the week, so looking to get good access to Stevens Pass.

I feel everyone’s sentiment on moving from a place like boulder/Montana to Seattle. Wife is getting a corporate job for some experience and I’m tagging along. I’m actually a little excited as I’ve been working an 8-5 full time job for awhile now and I’ll finally get a year or two to focus on climbing/skiing while working a more flexible job (haven’t found that yet tho..) 

My wife and I are moving to the Seattle area in June. My office is downtown but I’ll only be going in 3 days a week at most with the aim of getting in and out early. We’re looking at the east side burbs for access to I-90 and Snoqualmie Pass, especially with night skiing during winter months. I’m more interested in trail running and skiing/touring these days though.  We also have two dogs that need some space.

Regardless of where in the metro area one lives it seems bigger objectives will require a full weekend so I don’t see being in the north metro as any better for access.  I could be wrong though and that is why we’ll rent for a year. That’s my take so far from our recon trip and talking with people.

I think you might be a bit to focused on specific places, climbing and skiing here are seasonal themselves.

Ski season looks like: Hitting 200 rocks/barely skiing trying to get to highest altitude-> snows ski anywhere and its magical -> immediate death in avy terrain-> you tell yourself the weak layer won't blow and you go back to your happy ski terrain-> ski mountaineering asking is this always ice. Stevens pass tends to close for just about any possible reason and closes often on the best of days. For the back country you will be trapped at Yodlin a lot unless your willing to also travel to snoqualmie/crystal/baker/olympics (if you like skiing the densest snow on earth). So don't limit yourself just to Stevens.

For climbing season generally goes: Vantage complain about how there are 500 people at the crag->Tieton lol why is this place empty-> leavenworth traffic will make you wanna die and you'll see human shit everywhere->exits everyone complaining about how much better index is-> index people complaining about moss/how bad of climbing shape they are in/doing one climb and calling it a season->Washington pass/alpine get in the congo line cause you won't be the only party, it will be a party->climb anything that is dry->vantage. Be sure to insert the excuse that you need to train more even if you have gone to the gym everyday for 6 months. Everyone in Seattle trains, for what, I don't know. Also know that no matter how much people talk about building inclusive cultures here they actually don't care about being friendly or nice or doing 90% of the stuff they talk about.

Edit: This is definitely not targeted at anyone I could probably show people 100 texts with the training in gym excuse which is fine, just I would rather struggle on 5.6 outside than climb in a gym.

Princess Puppy Lovr wrote:

I think you might be a bit to focused on specific places, climbing and skiing here are seasonal themselves.

Ski season looks like: Hitting 200 rocks/barely skiing trying to get to highest altitude-> snows ski anywhere and its magical -> immediate death in avy terrain-> you tell yourself the weak layer won't blow and you go back to your happy ski terrain-> ski mountaineering asking is this always ice. Stevens pass tends to close for just about any possible reason and closes often on the best of days. For the back country you will be trapped at Yodlin a lot unless your willing to also travel to snoqualmie/crystal/baker/olympics (if you like skiing the densest snow on earth). So don't limit yourself just to Stevens.

For climbing season generally goes: Vantage complain about how there are 500 people at the crag->Tieton lol why is this place empty-> leavenworth traffic will make you wanna die and you'll see human shit everywhere->exits everyone complaining about how much better index is-> index people complaining about moss/how bad of climbing shape they are in/doing one climb and calling it a season->Washington pass/alpine get in the congo line cause you won't be the only party, it will be a party->climb anything that is dry->vantage. Be sure to insert the excuse that you need to train more even if you have gone to the gym everyday for 6 months. Everyone in Seattle trains, for what, I don't know. Also know that no matter how much people talk about building inclusive cultures here they actually don't care about being friendly or nice or doing 90% of the stuff they talk about.

Lol you have obviously never skiied in the Bitterroot or Mission Mountains. it’s all about a high snow line, sketchy snowpack and heinous bushwhack approach here. At least there aren’t any people though, I’d be lying if I wasn’t nervous about the crowds!

I was focused on Stevens as I was hoping to get a midweek season pass, but if there is a better resort please tell me and I’ll look into that one :)

Mike-Mayhem wrote:

Lol you have obviously never skiied in the Bitterroot or Mission Mountains. it’s all about a high snow line, sketchy snowpack and heinous bushwhack approach here. At least there aren’t any people though, I’d be lying if I wasn’t nervous about the crowds!

I was focused on Stevens as I was hoping to get a midweek season pass, but if there is a better resort please tell me and I’ll look into that one :)

They are all the same with crystal probably being slightly better. Stevens has okay steep runs but not that steep, its easy to get fresh turns cause no one skis that hard there. Snoqualmie most the terrain is forgettable except alpental which is amazing for about 3 runs and then is skied out, has probably the best side country and by far the best night skiing. Crystal has the best terrain, truly the worst traffic and worst lines. Baker is longest drive gets by far most snow but often closes large parts of ski area for avalanche concerns. White pass probably the worst terrain but no lines and always fresh pow. Hurricane ridge, where I learned to ski, my wife cried when I took her.

Steven's is cool, but you're going to get sick of it if you are going daily.  The resort ski season also only lasts for a limited period of time as well, some years in the last decade have been extremely short.  So choosing a living location based on Steven's specifically is probably non-ideal haha

Baker has the best terrain and side/backcountry access hands down. It's not even close. It's very reminicent of AK. I'd say for pure sidecountry alpental is probably second (completely unique minigolf), but highway 2 has much more worth while touring (think everything from low angle pillows, to couloirs, and big complex terrain). Crystal is a good resort with some good side/backcountry, but they've limited the pure touring access unless you ride the lifts and use it as sidecountry. They also have a cat track at the base of every good line besides the king, and their best inbounds face (rockface) is permanently closed. Midweek you can score anywhere, but a lot of times on the best days the roads do close due to avy control or downed trees, so if it's gonna be really good, go up the night before and camp. You could have the whole place to yourself. 

The back country has been stupid if you go to any of the spots with low hanging fruit. I've literally had people poach my skintrack, never break trail, then when they get to the top hustle to strap in, and try and snake my line. Walk a bit further, or go into more committing terrain,  and you can be all alone.