Portland,OR vs Bellingham, WA for climbing?

Best immediate access which is where the conversation went.

balzano wrote:Best immediate access which is where the conversation went.

Immediate access - in Bellingham compared to Portland. It was exclusively about those cities until you insisted to plug Placid for some odd reason.

Marc801 wrote: Immediate access - in Bellingham compared to Portland. It was exclusively about those cities until you insisted to plug Placid for some odd reason.

It's the whole east coast inferiority complex thing.

Tapawingo wrote: It's the whole east coast inferiority complex thing.

Beast coast buddy. I've lived on both coasts and the east coasters tend to clean up out west on rock and on skis. Some of the best guides, climbers, and skiers come from the NE.

A Smith Rock 10 is a soft Adirondack 8. Spend a week in Lake Placid and tell me its not a paradise.

balzano wrote: Beast coast buddy. I've lived on both coasts and the east coasters tend to clean up out west on rock and on skis. Some of the best guides, climbers, and skiers come from the NE. A Smith Rock 10 is a soft Adirondack 8. Spend a week in Lake Placid and tell me its not a paradise.

Can you tell me more about Lake Placid?

mediocre wrote: Can you tell me more about Lake Placid?

LP is in northern NY, 2 hours from Montreal, 1.5 hours from Burlington, 3.5 hours to the Gunks parking lot. Situated in the heart of in the Adirondack mountains. Its a swanky touristy hockey drinking town that blows up with tourists. Ice, rocks, skis, beer, French Canadian girls, repeat. Its packed on the weekends. Where the 80 USA hockey team beat the Russians.

The Adirondacks are extremely remote. Look at a satellite map of NY and you'll see the Adirondack park is extremely vacant of human crap. Billboards not allowed. The high peaks area is especially remote. 46 peaks in the Adirondacks over 4000'. Yes 4000', not 14,000'. But the elevation gain is gnarly, and personally humidity is harder than elevation (to an extent). Public land everywhere. Camp wherever you want (more or less).

Rock:

First off, Adirondack Rock is the best guide book in the history of life. Thicker than the bible. None of those fancy photo books by 6-pack rock beauty celebs with junk beta. This book is thorough. I believe I have two FAs in the new edition, NBD...

The ADKs have everything. Sexy granite all around. Multi pitch: sport/trad, remote stuff, roadside stuff, long fourth class and low 5 1500' sprinters. Poke O, Silver Lake, Trap Dike, Chapel Pond, Catamount, and some stuff deep in the woods. Shorter trad: Stone Master FAs here, easily 1000 good crack climbs within an hour of LP with minimal approaches under 20 min. Amazing views. The place lacks an abundance of easy single pitch sport, but theres enough to keep you busy for a summer. Highball boulders, roadside boulders, remote boulders, overhanging boulders.

Skiing:

There is good backcountry skiing; trail skiing is abundant and slide skiing is gnarly. It is NOT west coast backcountry. You have to earn your turns with long approaches, and the tree skiing is not as spaced out. Jackrabbit trail is a classic cxc / backcountry ski trail that spans four towns. There is a 2+ mile continual downhill and at the bottom you can skin out on a frozen lake to a little island for a well earned winter beer. Whiteface Mtn ski resort is the highest vertical drop in the east coast. Its a gnarly ice pit and people die there. The slides off the high chair will spook you. Views of Vermont's Green Mountains and Lake Champlain, and into Canada.

Ice:

The ice abounds. Roadside to long approaches. Shroomy top rope able single pitch to 600' slabs. 1000' exposed faces. Best winter day imho: 1000' easy ice up the west face of Gothics, and then ski one of the slides back to the trail.

Its a great place to spend 2-5 years. Its a tough place to start a family or build a career. Go there with money. You can nab an A frame in the woods for under $100k in one of the surrounding towns. If I hit the lottery I would spend most of the year in Keene Valley.

Enjoy.

Balzano, nothing you've said to this point has anything to do with the topic of this thread.

Unless you LOVE ice climbing, there is no reason to ever consider moving to the Northeast. I say this as a current New England resident, and a former resident of Washington and Montana. The skiing out here is legitimately terrible. I can't emphasize enough how much worse the skiing is than in any state west of the 100th meridian. The weather sucks--rainy spring, sticky summer, sleet all winter. There is no alpine climbing. The rock climbing is actually very good, but there's nothing to compare with long routes at Squamish, Smith, or Washington Pass. Nothing like the Stawamus Chiefl, Zebra/Zion, or the Liberty Bell group. I can't wait to get back out West.

I would choose Portland (or maybe Hood River), because you have better options for climbing in the winter by driving over to the high desert. In B-ham, your options for winter climbing are pretty limited. It's a long ass drive over the mountains when Highway 20 is closed. However, if you're willing to give up winter climbing except for rare sunny days at Squamish or Index and just be a skier, then B-ham wins.

Balzano, please start your own thread on Placid love and quit mucking up this one.

Congratulations! Enjoy, and get a pair of fat skis--a normal winter at Baker will leave you nipple-deep in snow, and this winter is La Nina, so bring a snorkel.

balzano wrote:...Oregon isn't much to write home about. The skiing is good..

I can't take anything you've said seriously. If you like wet, soggy, shit snow then Oregon and the lower Cascades are "good". I don't think I would want to actually live in B'ham but Oregon skiing is a dumpster fire.

Alexander Blum wrote:Balzano, nothing you've said to this point has anything to do with the topic of this thread.

I won't challenge that. But hey the dude asked.

I respectfully disagree with the previous post. The skiing in Oregon is pretty awesome. It's not dry cowboy powder in the Cascades but they've got some amazing roadside backcountry 10 minutes outside of town and the Cascades host some deep backcountry ski mountaineering adventures well into late spring. The Wallowas are magical as well.

If you ski backcountry then Oregon is top shelf stuff. If you're a lift skier then you are correct in that it's not amazing.

balzano wrote: I won't challenge that. But hey the dude asked.

He was being facetious.

Gonna try and hijack this thread as it seems you've already made your decision. I'm thinking of making a move next year and bellingham is one of my options, the other main one being bend (tahoe also in the running). Any thoughts on the better between the 2? Also big skiier, mtn biker, and future paddler.

Much appreciated!

Jeremy Justus wrote:Gonna try and hijack this thread as it seems you've already made your decision. I'm thinking of making a move next year and bellingham is one of my options, the other main one being bend (tahoe also in the running). Any thoughts on the better between the 2? Also big skiier, mtn biker, and future paddler. Much appreciated!

Hey Jeremy,

Out of those 3, skiing is best near Bellingham: Whistler for weekends, Baker for day trips, copious backcountry options. Good mountain biking too. But how do you feel about rain? It rains a lot. November is basically a throwaway month: not enough snow for skiing, too much rain for climbing. When it's not raining, the climbing is excellent but a bit of a drive: North Cascades, Squamish, etc.

The skiing near bend is even closer (Bachelor 25 minutes or so from downtown), but it's lacking in steeps not nearly as good as Baker. I don't know much about the backcountry skiing in Oregon. Only rains about 10 inches a year, and you can climb year-round within an hour or so.

Tahoe has great summer climbing, good resort and backcountry, and you're driving distance from some of the best winter climbing in the country (Bishop, J-Tree, Red Rock). The most people, traffic, and general "scene."

tahoe

For nearby access to rock and length of climbing season, Bellingham is a distant third to the other two. Skiing is a different story.

Jeremy Justus wrote:Gonna try and hijack this thread as it seems you've already made your decision. I'm thinking of making a move next year and bellingham is one of my options, the other main one being bend (tahoe also in the running). Any thoughts on the better between the 2? Also big skiier, mtn biker, and future paddler. Much appreciated!

-- Since you mentioned paddling. Bellingham has easy access to both, all year round. The north cascades offer the best Class III-V WWkayaking in the country less than an hour drive away. With land on either end, sea Kayaking off Bellingham bay up to San Juan islands gives you the all the advantages of kayaking on the Pacific (big waves, paddling with whales etc.) without the exposure. I think people underestimate how scary sea kayaking on the ocean can be. I would rather be stranded on a mountain side than in an ocean.

I would guess Bend would give you similar opportunities for WWkayaking but not much for sea kayaking. I can't comment about Tahoe.