Argo

Snowolf or anyone up there, what do you think about the area between sandy and mt hood village to live? I like vail but we are on a continuous journey to see the country one place at a time, 18-24 months at a time. Our next stop is the PNW and I'm looking for places 30 minutes from the city..... Portland or Seattle metro area but also with very close distance of snowboarding. Growing up in 100+ temps of south Texas for months at a time, my wife and I like the cloudy, rainy, cool environment up there.

Seattle area I would guess somewhere on the route to Crystal or snoqualmie pass but 30 min from downtown in good conditions. Any other suggestions in this area?

Bend area was a thought too but it seems quite arid.... I plan to spend a couple days in bend tis June on the way to hood though....

ShredLife

i live in Portland now, but after a year of living here i'd rather live up towards sandy or in the brightwood area. the west side of all mt passes in Oregon act like rain-catches, so you better like the rain . or at least be able to find things to do when it is.. luckily you have worldclass fishing and snowboarding etc., and a really great food/music scene year round an hour away in pdx.

i lived in Bend for 7 years and would gladly move back. the mts to the west of town act as the rain-catch, so bend and the desert east gets alot of sun while the mountains still get dumped on. so many days it will be dumping on the mt. and 20 minutes away down in town it will be sunny!

in the summer it is 90 alot but only 100+ for maybe a week or so. there is so much fun outdoor shit to do there... worldclass climbing at smithrock and other places, great snow at Bachelor and the surrounding bc is sick, lots of rivers - all with different character to them - for fishing/rafting/kayaking/etc., great golf if you're into that, tons of lakes. central oregon really is great. anyone who loves the outdoors would love it.

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get the hell off my lawn.

Argo

Good info and thanks. My wife and I actually enjoy the rain and gladly hike and camp in it. I could go either way butI prefer it to 100 degrees and beating sun, My wife has grown quite intolerant to heat in the last 5 years and gets hives on exposed skin in heat. We also live the larger scale of forests up there compared to here in CO. I'm interested to see the snow differences with the heavy super deep powder up there, the powder I've ridden the last 6 years is the light fluff...

We want as many different types of riding experiences as possible and living experiences so that's why we wanna move around some. Another year here in vail to enjoy as much of the surroundings as possible then off to the next place. I may do a 3 month assignment in Hawaii between here and there too.....

Whoracle

i have lived in the puyallup/sumner/tacoma area all my life. I currently live in Sumner, its roughly 50m west of crystal and 45m south of Seattle. Its a very small town feel, everyone is nice and a fairly low crime rate (up just in this general area (the PNW) there are a lot of meth junkies though). For the most part our weather is mild all year long. It doesnt rain a lot, but it is cloudy/ slight drizzle a lot of the times. You really cant go wrong living in the sumner or puyallup area, they are definitely some of the nicer areas to live in for a middle class family.

HoboMaster

Anything east of the Cascades is going to be generally hot and dry... Oreographic Lifting (all of the moisture gets squeezed out of the air mass as it rises over the mountains).

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PowderHound and TreeNinja

Argo

I'll probably spend a few days in the greater Seattle/Tacoma area also in June as we do every year but this time focusing on places like puyallup. May even venture way north to Bellingham too.

Shred, I noticed that houses out in the area of sandy and further are pretty reasonable for what you get... Is it a pretty economically depressed area or something.... Nice houses on acreage of fairly cheap.... $300-500k with 5-10 acres and up to 4000 sq/ft.... I'm strongly considering selling my home in tx this year and relocating my shit up there....

ShredLife

well, like the housing market as a whole the market is down 'up there' on the mt as well. that area is dependent on tourism and most of the houses are retirees, rental investments, or 2nd homes for the wealthy... most of that stuff is still down

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get the hell off my lawn.

wrathfuldeity

Argo, I've worked in Chehalis, Olympia, Shelton, Bremerton, Mt Vernon, Anacortes and Bellingham...no desire to live in Seattle/Tacoma area. Lived in Olympia once and Bham twice...currently plan on dying here...but not anytime soon. I prefer North Puget Sound vs South Puget Sound or Central Puget Sound...south is a bit more warm, alittle longer summers, further from the water, more traffic, more sburbs. Central Puget sound, more parking lot traffic, more IT coffee snoobs and "isn't Seattle cool" shitheads.

Bham because you can get to the hills, islands, sailing, kayaking, scuba diving, kite boarding, all manner of biking, hiking, camping much easier, faster and there are a fair amount of devotees in each sport. Its abit cooler, summers a bit shorter and less temp extremes. Its more rural, farming fishing logging feel and not so burbish. If you want the cosmopolitan thing Vancouver is 45-60 minutes away and Seattle is 90 minutes and either Van/Sea is easily accessible by train. Bham is the "city of subdued excitement" or excrement. Alot of young single people say its hard to meet mates here but its a great place for families with kids. As for social and political stratification its alot more open or integrated and educated librail verses say Olympia or Bremerton where you have military, government and service and each stay to their own.

Anyway, it sounds like you might be in the medical field and I work in most of the ED's in the area. So if you/family are in the area for a visit let me know.

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Argo

Is mt baker your closest ski/board area? What's the drive time?

wrathfuldeity

From downtown Bham to Baker ski area, 70 mins leisure drive with usually stopping for gas on the way up...some kids in their wrx;s do it in 50-60 min. There are a couple of places to car pool or easily hitch from and on weekends you can catch a bus for $10 roundtrip.

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