Seattle vs. Bay Area

My employer might transfer my job to Seattle and I am weighing the decision and it's impact on climbing/lifestyle. Neither location is cheap and both have their drawbacks (traffic, housing cost, etc). Right now I mainly sport climb and boulder mostly in Yosemite, Tahoe area, trips to Bishop, etc. and occasionally some of the local coastal/Bay spots. The Bay isn't necessarily that close to things, but I've climbed almost year round there and it's a place that I know well since I grew up there.

Seattle seems to have great bouldering nearby and lots of sport/trad options as well, but the winters and wetness is intimidating. I've tried to research how this impacts climbing areas vs. the city itself, which requires going in and looking at weather history for each specific crag and is a PITA. Does anyone have any comments on which area they would prefer to live in in Seattle, Seattle vs. The Bay, the actual impact of the winter on climbing season, etc? It seems overwhelming at the moment.

Seattle has essentially zero (it's an overstatement but not by much) outside climbing Mid October to Mid April, which is 6 consecutive months. Each of the 7 months from Oct-April has more days of rain than days without, as measured at the airport, which is drier than the crags. If working weekdays and needing a climbing partner, I think a fair estimate of the number of dry and climbable warm weekends November/December/Jan/Feb/March is ~4.

Even if the weather were to always be dry and temperate, get ready to drive a ton as climbing isn't within an hour of the city ("close" being a relative term here. The only decent climbing within an 80 minute drive of Seattle is a good small sport crag (Little Si) with a couple dozen pitches in the 5.12- to .14- range. The other climbing within 80 minutes (Exit 38) will likely only appeal to relatively new sport climbers.

I don't know much about the areas close to the Bay, but Seattle doesn't offer easy access to rock due to bad weather and long distances.

Smith rock is a 5 hour drive from Seattle and stays dry just about all winter. I’ve been justifying the 10 hour round trip every few weeks to keep my sanity. There’s also great skiing/snowboarding very close to the city if you’re into that. 

I've lived in Maryland, Vermont, the Bay Area (Palo Alto), the Front Range (Golden), Vegas, and Seattle. Comparing Seattle to these places, my thoughts are that the climbing opprotunites (access, weather, etc) in Seattle are not as good as Vegas or the Front Range, but better than the east coast areas I lived and, relevant to this thread, better than the Bay Area. One of my frequent climbing partners also used to live in the Bay Area and agrees with this sentiment. Both of us found that, given a finite amount of time, energy, motivation, and gas money, you will get to climb more in Seattle than the Bay Area. Although the climbing season in Seattle is shorter than the Bay Area, this is comensated by the climbing being closer. There are much better options for nearby (0:45-1:15 driving time) climbing areas in Seattle, so when the season is "on", you can climb a fair bit. Compare this to the Bay Area, where the climbing has a longer season, but is always far away. This weather vs. drive time tradeoff will depend on the person. The long drives to climb in the Bay Area really burned me out. Others are more tolerant of long drives to climb.

Regarding winter in Seattle, local climbing is pretty solid and reliable mid-April to mid-October, but you can often stretch the season to include most of March and November as well by driving to drier weather east of the mountains, skipping work to poach the occaisional sunny weekday, or taking a trip to Smith. Outdoor climbing is rare December-February, but on the rare day that it does get dry it is brilliant (cold conditions). So realistically 6 months of generally good weather, 3 months of dodgy shoulder season, and 3 months of off-season. Picking up a winter hobby (i.e. skiing) is strongly reccomended to stay sane. Side note: if you do like to ski this will definitely tip the balance to Seattle over the Bay area, since like the climbing the ski access from Seattle is also much closer than in the Bay.

Seattle isn't the best place to be a rock climber, by any means. As a climber, it would be much better to be in Colorado, Salt Lake, Vegas, Flagstaff, Reno, etc.. But that isn't the choice at hand. Given the Bay Area vs. Seattle, I definitely prefer Seattle. But it could be reasonable to feel otherwise (if you hate rain and don't mind long drives).

i think blake is exagerating - it's more like 8 or 9 months.  usually i agree with JCM's sage wisdom, but i think he is on drugs in this case.

let me put it this way.  i bought ( and have been using) a pair of f___cking snowshoes the last few weeks. i have no idea when i will climb outside again.

if somebody would have told me a few years ago that in the near future i would be spending my weekends mindlessly snowshoeing in the fog i would have lit them on fire and beat that fire out with a shovel.

you havent mentioned other aspects of your life.  are you single? being a single guy in seattle would really suck. as in really really suck.  the tooth to tattoo ratio is way suboptimal here.  also, seattle is way more filthy, feels way more claustrophobic, and has the worst mannered people i have seen anywhere.  you know the old saying about rats eating themselves? .... exactly....

i would really seriously contemplate your situation here.

smith rock a 5 hour drive from seattle?   lolz, maybe that's what google says...

slim wrote: smith rock a 5 hour drive from seattle?   lolz, maybe that's what google says...

I've been making the drive down to Smith Rock every year since 2008. The only time when it didn't take me 5 hours to get from Seattle to Smith Rock was this year when we got caught in a traffic jam caused by construction in the Tacoma region

Thanks everyone! I do not have a winter hobby, but grew up skiing and snowboarding. I am married and we hope to buy a small house in which I will build a Tension Board and spray wall most likely. I don't mind training that much. We also own a Transit camper van, so driving from the Bay is getting slightly better, but is still fuckin rough.

I think Reno is the best of the three you mention...oh wait, sorry wrong thread...

Frenchman Coullee is just under three hours from Seattle. I’ve climb there often in the winter. Tieton River is a similar distance. It gets cold there in the winter, but it is often good climbing weather there during rainy fall and spring months in Seattle. Banks Lake is about 4 hours away, also very dry most of the year. 

As above, Vantage, Tieton, Index are day-trip close and stay much drier than seattle. 30 min out of town on 90 are the little si exits also mentioned above in a rather demeaning tone which are good. There is a ton of alpine climbing if you're into that. As other people have mentioned, it's not going to be like living in colorado or moab or something, but of your options for work, its not a bad deal. Also the city and locale are excellent. I'm biased, being from there.

And Slim.... maybe it's you?

lolz, you can't say that you have never heard of the "seattle chill"....  it's like a point of pride up here. that, and people don't know how to get in and out of elevators, the train, the bus....  not to mention how people have no idea how to stand in line at the grocery store, etc...  not to mention all of the tools riding the one wheel segway things while staring at their phones, flying a drone that is live streaming their radness, and plowing into elderly people on the sidewalk..

you gotta admit, the official techbro / awkward hipster / superprivelegedyetangrytrustafarian mob gets a bit old....

The people who clearly aren't happy living in Washington and make it a point to be extremely vocal about it also get pretty old (not referring to people in this thread, more thinking of various cali and colorado transplants I know of). You can't compare Washington to the Front Range, and living here is not for everyone, especially if you're exclusively a rock climber. I've lived in both eastern and western Washington. Yeah, the western WA weather is shit in the winter but that's why I ski. But I've also climbed outside in western WA (not Vantage) every month of the year for the past few years I've been living in Bellingham. The weather certainly forces you to be opportunistic and I've been lucky enough to be able to capitalize on those opportunities when I can.

How happy you might be might really depend on the nature of the work you're doing and how in control of your schedule you are - if you're able to capitalize on weather windows when they come and enjoy backcountry skiing/splitboarding, it might not be as bad as some people say.

TBH I work in tech, but don't like it or that mentality Slim described. But, no ideas for a career switch where I could continue to afford living anywhere with enough opportunities for my wife's job and eventually build my own training dungeon because I like training, but hate gyms.

I think my work is mostly 9-5ish and I probably can't bail with 24hrs notice. Right now I can work from home certain days and hit local crags, which are by no means great (Mortar Rock/Berkeley mainly) and in general with enough notice I can take some Fridays off to do some driving.

I grew up skiing and snowboarding, but my wife is from Texas. She seems interested in cross country skiing and I definitely would be as well, however, I can't bank on that entirely. We typically mix climbing, hiking, kayaking and fair weather sports on our weekend trips.

Karl Walters wrote: TBH I work in tech, but don't like it or that mentality Slim described. But, no ideas for a career switch where I could continue to afford living anywhere with enough opportunities for my wife's job and eventually build my own training dungeon because I like training, but hate gyms.

I found slim's comment about tech bro's in Seattle amusing. Not because there aren't tons of annoying tech bros in Seattle (there are), but because this is a "Seattle vs Bay Area" thread. Tech is here, and it causes the expected issues, but it is in general a slightly milder version of the tech culture/impacts observed in much of the Bay Area.

Regarding slim's other comments: My understanding is that he moved here from the Front Range, has been unable to adjust his expectations accordingly, and as a result is very unhappy. It is true that Seattle is a substantially worse place to be a climber than the Front Range. If you need Front Range proximity to climbing (and weather) to be happy, Seattle will be a problem. But (IMO) the Bay Area is even worse. If you are already adapted to the Bay Area BS (cost of living, techies, traffic, distance to climbing), Seattle may seem pretty OK. As I mentioned above, comparing the two really comes down to a question of climbing proximity vs. weather.

Lastly, since you mentioned training dungeons (and I recognize your name from r/climbharder): The training space situation in Seattle gyms has gotten pretty good in recent years. Specifically, Seattle Bouldering Project built a few years ago a large, nice basement training area, with 3 large spray walls (at 15*, 30*, 45*), Moon Board, 2 tread walls (usually 1 is functional at any given time), good hangboard collection and campus board, expanded weight room, etc. The rest of the gym is kind of a junk show (crowded; comp-style setting; generally useless for training), but you can easily hide in the basement training area to avoid all that. It is a really good training setup for a large commercial gym.

The new bouldering gym in town (Momentum) also has a training area of similar quality. 2 large spray walls (I think ~25*, 40*), adjustable angle Tension Board, good hangboard collection and campus board, nice weight room. Also a good option. Noting this since I have been unimpressed by the training-room options at the Bay Area Touchstone gyms I've been to.

As others have said, being a skier helps with the winters.

You could also consider this potential move as an opportunity to expand into other disciplines of climbing. While the weather windows for alpinism and mountaineering are largely the same as rock climbing, we have a lifetime's worth of both. Add into your moving costs the funds for a crampons, axe, etc. You won't live anywhere else in the lower 48 where you can drive from salt water to the foot of a glacier in two hours. 

How is the climbing culture? Bay culture seems very segregated depending on what discipline, what age, how cool you are, what gym you go to, and even what you do there. Honestly it’s kinda lame to try and break into and seems permeated by fake relationships.

Yeah i think Slim (and a couple others) mocked my comment in the Portland/Seattle/Reno thread, too, for saying I climb year round in Portland because I know the routes that stay dry during November-March. Maybe Slim has SAD and if this thread was started in August he'd be saying how great the climbing at WA Pass, Index, Leavenworth, Squamish, etc is because his current experience would be loving the WA granite. I don't know. As an admin maybe he could be less snarky and self-loathing? Then again I do give him style points and that ought to count.Hey Slim, where do you stand on electric scooters? Keep them off your lawn?

In the pacific northwest you just watch the weather and there's usually a dry day every day of the week year round (today in Portland it's sunny and 45, it hasn't rained in over 24 hours - that says a lot huh, ha ha -  and based on 15 years' experience here I'm sure at least 75% of the routes at our local crags are totally climbable - the rest might still be seeping), and often a few days in a row.  Not to mention you can drive east 2-3 hours over the Cascade range to climb at Smith or Trout Creek or Vantage or Tieton or Leavenworth in the winter unless there's a  true cold spell.

I don't love the climbing here but i do like it, and since I love climbing itself, I've found my city to be good enough considering I have a job wife, 3 kids, I coach soccer, I have  hobbies, my wife and kids have hobbies, etc. I could be living in Moab or Boulder and honestly I'm not sure many more days a year I'd climb outside, assuming my non-climbing commitments stayed the same.  Like the say, wherever you go, there you are. My point being Bay Area vs. Seattle depends on much more than just "how good is the climbing" but who re you, and what do you like to climb, and how much time do you have to do it?

Extremely unhelpful yet crucial advice: buy a fixie (single geared bicycle) for either locale you end up in!!

I just moved to Seattle a few months ago. I was in Chicago before so I really can't complain about the gray/bad weather.

I mostly sport climb, so exit 38 and exit 32 are okay options 30 mins away from the city. Vantage (sport + trad) is 2.5 hours east and climbable during the winter (I have not been myself in the winter yet but that's what I heard). Smith rock is 6 hrs away and I've been there a couple times in fall. Traffic getting out of Seattle is absolutely terrible on Friday afternoon. It's probably too cold to climb in the winter though. Even Ondra wore a sweatshirt..

Snow sports are huge here. So if you are into skiing/snowboarding, the winter would be much much more tolerable.

Seattle is right next to the cascades and olympic park and has very easy access to nature. It still feels surreal to me that I can see the outline of the cascades and mt baker from my window, and rainier on my way to work. Rent is expensive ($2k+ for one bedroom in the city) but everything else is quite affordable. 

bryans wrote:...Hey Slim, where do you stand on electric scooters? Keep them off your lawn?....

i don't have a lawn, just a slab of cold, wet, mossy concrete.   but keep that thing off my concrete!   :)

a lot of my comments are semi-tongue in cheek.  the summers are definitely excellent, there is no doubt about that.  the north cascades are definitely impressive and exhausting for a 2 day weekend worker bee (if you can somehow swing a flex schedule with 3 day weekends that would be a big advantage).  squamish is obviously superb, and a fairly easy weekend trip.  during the summer you will think (and your wife will audibly say) "i can't believe we want to leave so badly."

the problem is the rest of the year, which is a solid 8 or 9 months.  man, i am really impressed that JCM can stick to the grind of training all winter long here.  my first 9 months here i worked 7 days a week the entire time.  there were literally 5 or 6 days that i had off (and almost all of those days it was raining everywhere, despite them being during the "dry" months).  it was rough.  once work calmed down, i tried to get in the swing of things but i just found it completely de-motivating to train all winter with literally zero days getting out climbing.  i went another 4 months without climbing outside at all.  training started to feel un-appealing (which is really unusual for me, i have always really enjoyed training).  i just feel like i am treading water while holding a brick above my head, for months at a time.  contrast this to living in the rocky mountain west or other locations where you can climb hard every weekend year round.  it is definitely a major transition.

i think another issue is the city itself.  the streets are all very narrow, very dirty, and very crowded.  the quantity and general craziness of the homeless here are on another level.  i have spent time in NYC, LA, bay area, etc, and the homeless situation here is a lot more depressing.  when you combine all of this with the 8 or 9 months of dark and drizzle you can start to lose your mind pretty easily.

just wanting to prepare you :)