Moving to Boston, Mass... need help!

cjdrover wrote:I think the quality of your outdoors life has more to do with you than where you live - and that goes for everyone.

But having numerous, enormous cliffs of great rock, good people, and great weather definitely helps! Just ask someone who lives in North Dakota how much their outdoors life (especially with regards rock climbing) has to do with them. Sometimes the place is the destination. Wait, no. The place IS the destination! [and often I'm happy when I arrive and there's few people there]

If people want to climb and do it year round, their best bang for the climbing buck is West. Everywhere else in the US has major compromises, whether it be the quality/quantity of climbing available, weather, etc.

I've had a blast learning to climb while living in my hometown Northeast. But bigger things are ahead, and my time here is only preparation for what my experience and heart tells me awaits me elsewhere.

JSH wrote:because I feel trolly: The Gunks is 220 miles. We routinely do it in 3 hours exit-to-exit. Yes, it's been said that I drive like a maniac, but even as I've gotten older I still do that drive in 3 hours.

Hahaha takes me about 3 hours from Albany to get to Boston. Gunks are 1:15 from Albany. I won't ask how fast you drive. lol

I love NE climbing... it's super diverse and can serve up endless amounts of whatever ur into except big walls. Kevin doesn't appear to be well traveled in the New England area given his comments.

All, thanks for the wealth of information. We have contacted a few realtors or 'brokers' in the neighborhoods suggested. We are going to try hard to find something NW of downtown, w/ quick access via the T to downtown. It seems that is the consensus. I plan to make the gunks and cathedral my new stomping grounds. We have climbed for years out west; we will move back in 4 years after our stay on the east coast, but we are really excited to check out the NE crags for a few years. Thx to everyone who offered to show us around, I will give you a shout in early June.

My wife and I are in a similar position...we are moving to Boston from Fort Collins for grad school at Northeastern. I'll probably start a new thread at some point as we are looking for a place in Jamacia Plain/Roslindale. Does anyone want to rent their place to us?We are also looking for some good folks to get out climbing with. Any info would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Wow, thanks Ben, you've really started quite the thread here. I'm not going to debate East vs. West but that's the topic for next weeks #ClimbChat on twitter. If any one is interested, it happens at 9pm EST every Tuesday night.

Now, I've only climbed in the East so I'm partial to it. There are some awesome places to climb, and I'm told by the experts that the ice climbing in New England is very comparable to Ouray, CO. Meaning of the highest quality. I love Quincy Quarries as well. Yes there's graffiti which make the starts slick in places, but there's a lot of really fun routes with lots of features. The key is it's close to Boston which I love. Rumney is an easy drive and it has some of the best sport climbing in the East. Just my 2 cents.

Brian Weinstein wrote:My wife and I are in a similar position...we are moving to Boston from Fort Collins for grad school at Northeastern. I'll probably start a new thread at some point as we are looking for a place in Jamacia Plain/Roslindale. Does anyone want to rent their place to us?We are also looking for some good folks to get out climbing with. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks!

If you are at Northeastern, check out the supporting walls in Kenmore Square, an old haunt of many. The climbing is fierce and the grades are,,a all "5.9"
JP/Rosi has changed tons over the years.. for the better and of course prices now reflect that.

Kevin Heckeler wrote: Hahaha takes me about 3 hours from Albany to get to Boston. Gunks are 1:15 from Albany. I won't ask how fast you drive. lol

You don't have to ask. 220 miles / 3 hours = 73 mph.

(and you don't have to go through Albany to get from Boston to New Paltz.)

With that said, the catch for me is the traffic... and the desire to stop for dinner. I plan on 4-5 hours to get from here to New Paltz, but no more than 3 to get to North Conway (2:30-2:40 without traffic).

I live in East Somerville, right next to I-93 and the Sullivan Square T stop. We're about a mile east of Union Square. It's a great location for getting out of town quickly, close to Metrorock, and convenient for my wife to commute to work downtown on the Orange Line. It's not so convenient to Harvard / MIT, but I jog or ride my bike most days - it's a little over 2 miles to MIT. It's not much for the city living lifestyle, but it is very affordable.

Don't limit yourself to looking for a single family home. You may well find a unit in a multifamily that has a fenced in yard that is good for the dog... or has a dog park nearby.

Be ready to pay extra $$$ for rent with dogs in Boston! I have two and rent was always inflated and places that took dogs few and farther between!!

Always willing as they are our best friends but just be ready to open the wallet.

Plenty of climbing year round if you wanna get out and should keep you busy for at least a few years easy!

I lived in Boston for a while and now live in CO. Like has been said, be close to a major interstate. I lived in JP and could generally get on the highway to go to NH in 10-15 minutes. It seems like now I make day trips to places around CO that I would have made a weekend for living in New England. It's less than 2 hours to Rumney and a little over for some trad around N. Conway. Anyways, really find something with quick highway access. Fewer traffic lights, closer proximity, whatever.

As for crag comparison. No there isn't the volume in the NE that you'll find in the west but quality is pretty high. Gunks, Rumney, N. Conway, Dacks are all real good. Sometimes I actually miss the climbing in New England. The rock quality in New England is better than out west. Yeah, I said it. That being said you won't find the volume or the scale in New England. Cannon is the biggest wall out there and I think the longest route is only 8 pitches. New England also has a lot of "off the beaten path" areas that are really nice. To each their own but the climbing in New England is good.

Boston is a surprisingly good place for a whole lot of varied climbing options. It's no more than 3.5 hrs to awesome trad in the Gunks and the Whites, a couple hours more gets you to the Daks. Rumney is about 2 hrs if you like to get in some occasional sport. Winters are neat too - lots of great single- and multi-pitch ice in NH, VT and the Daks, as well as a handful of pretty sweet alpine routes. And for those weekday evenings when you've got a couple hours to kill, you've got a local crag you can get to in 15 minutes.

John, I'll make sure to bring my shoes and chalkbag to class. Do you know any folks in JP/Rosy? Housing seems spendy but we are jazzed to live in the area...it has a similar feel to Fort Collins.

Most of the people I know in JP own Pubs ! I'll ask around though.

Don MacKenzie wrote:(and you don't have to go through Albany to get from Boston to New Paltz.)

That's the key, you probably take a more direct route through CT (?).

The traffic has always been the main issue heading from Albany to Boston. As the posts above mention, any daytime travel can expect bottlenecks, and weekend evenings it's nearly stop/go at times on the Mass Turnpike after Springfield (where some highways merge).

Traffic is also one of the primary reasons I don't live in a major city. People I know in Boston and NYC spend 10-15 hours commuting each week and travel only half the distance I do, and I spend maybe 5 hours /week in traffic. That's assuming they can't or won't take mass transit, which is what I would likely do. But some need to attend a school or have employment that requires being located in a major economic hub. Albany and other cities its size are not a destination for either! lol

JSH wrote: Sorry, Kevin, but --- bzzzzz! Don might have meant to point out (in saying that you don't have to go through Albany) that there is a connecter road that cuts from just south of Albany to the Pike. Thus, you never really see Albany when going 87 to Pike.

Yeah, we take that section of the thruway as well since we live east of Albany. That does save some time, which is why we use it.

I'll have to clock our next Boston trip to see how long it actually takes. Maybe 3 hours is an old estimate, or maybe that was with bathroom/gas stops. It's only ~160 miles. I don't drive slow! :-D

From my own experience, JSH has it spot-on when it comes to the drives BOS/NP/BOS. I often made Waltham to hairpin turn on 44/55 in 3:15 leaving Waltham at 7p and going with I-90/I-87. In the early 90's, we used to do the I-84 thing and I hated it. Since the speed limit on the Pike got raised to 65, I have not taken the I-84 way even once. Like Julie said, though the difference in distance is small, the I-90/I-87 way is so much easier, esp if you drive yourself (like I did). I 'cheated' on the way back to MA. I would spend Sun night at my friend's place, leave NP at 6a and be back at work in Waltham by about 9 Mon morning.

John, thanks for looking into it, much appreciated...although it seems like pub owners are better folks to know than landlords. Whereabouts in Southern Colorado are you?

Allston/Brighton area is safe, a bit cheaper, and not far from harvard at all. I live in Allston and ride my bike to work in Cambridge every day. It's also closer to Hammond Pond then Sommerville or other such places. Hammond is a cool little training area, but nothing to call home about.
Crow Hill is about an hr away and has some good crack leads up to the 5.11 range. I just moved here from Colorado about 6 months ago.....still haven't explored the white nountains in NH much but am planning on heading up there a good bit this summer. The cracks up there are said to be as good as anything you'd find in Yosemite....at least that's what the locals will tell you.
Hit me up if you wanna go do some crack climbing.
Cheers

Kevin Heckeler wrote:Name ONE THING that is completely false in that post dipshit. Let me put this another way - on any given day anyplace West of the great plains, at any given major climbing area, there will be numeorus international climbers that have traveled great distances to climb there. You'd be lucky to see anyone from a foreign land climbing in the northeast who aren't from Canada (no offense to our neighbors, just clarifying). The Northeast by subjective measure is not destination caliber climbing. There's bigger, better walls elsewhere in the country and world. (and in larger concentrations) We happen to live here and don't want to fly to climb, so there are cliffs, crags, and routes. But really, it aint anything special. Thumb through MP sometime and look at the Rockies, Sierras, Cascades, etc. Just ONE of those places has as many or more quality routes as the entire northeast combined. You can start in Colorado, start heading West, and run out of lifetime before you could finish climbing everything.

I'm probably adding to thread-drift, but I found this pretty interesting. I've lived in CT for about 1/2 of my "climbing life" and 1/2 in Colorado Ddenver area). The climbing is definitely better here in Denver. There's more variety, access to crags, and opportunity. There is more climbing around Denver for the 5.12- climber than can be done in a lifetime. There is a variety of sport or trad here to suit your needs. There are alpine endeavors, and climbs you can belay from your bumper.

However, I think that the east does have some world-renowned destinations. The Gunks is the crag that immediately comes to my mind, and you will be likely to hear many different languages when climbing there. There's also Cannon and Whitehorse in NH. Rumney and the Adirondacks are also well known (ADK esp. to Canadiens). I don't think that someone's exodus from the southwest is necessarily a bad thing. You have to follow your career, and if that career isn't climbing, well, you might just have to figure out how to make climbing work with your career.

Also I might add that CO has some VERY good ice climbing. RMNP, Vail, and Ouray are all really well known. We in Denver just wish there was some decent ice closer than an hour. How's that for spoiled!

That being said. I wish Ben a safe trip to Boston, and I am sure you will find what you are looking for. Who knows, you might figure out you are more a fan of sailing that climbing anyway...

cheers.

I don't know about as good as the Valley but... NH really has a lot of harder cracks, esp. 5.11 and up. They also tend to be a bit sharp.