Where would you like to retire????

I was unaware of the Alta gold card. The decision point between that and an Alta pass is about 22 days. The gold card doesn't help much with Snowbird. Half price Alta day ticket plus upgrade is close to the price of a ski shop Snowbird ticket.

In a thread last year there was discussion of single area vs. AltaBird and how many days at the less frequented area are needed. It was over 20 at one point but with a combined pass at $1450 it's only about 14 days.

And remember if you have an Alta, Snowbird OR combined pass you still get half price at Jackson and the other Mtn Collective areas.
 
Tony Crocker":r5vubjbo said:
I was unaware of the Alta gold card. The decision point between that and an Alta pass is about 22 days. The gold card doesn't help much with Snowbird.
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To reemphasize what Admin said, you need to prove you are a Utah resident to get the Alta Gold card - driver's license, property tax statement, etc.
 
RETIRE.....whew...beats me...need the outdoors....with...let's see, top medical facilities...
Up in the air right now....more jobs are here & there.. Those who have ties to multiple places, including skiing, I never considered...but now are looking pretty attractive. Even eyeing some jobs at some resorts...
SteveD
 
Online reader polls.....

Anyone remember this one? http://www.powdermag.com/stories/ski-to ... down-2014/
I've critiqued Powder's Powder-Per-Person formula for ski town rating, mainly for using questionable data. But the resulting seeding for the Throwdown is at least strongly influenced by snowfall and ski area scale. The readers selected two #16's over #1's, with a #15 winning the entire contest. I have no idea how Outside seeded their poll, but the seeding makes somewhat more sense than the poll results.
 
Tony Crocker":pxfvd3mc said:
Online reader polls.....
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... often yield very, very silly results. That was pretty much my point. (Although I was serious about the medical care being pretty good.)

Listen, if wilderness canoeing is your bag, there is no better city in the lower 48 to call your home with the B.W.C.A.W. only an hour-and-a-half away. Objectively, Duluth should also probably be top ranked for cross country skiing within city limits. Road biking, mountain biking, hiking, sailing, whitewater and sea kayaking are all very good within city limits and within very short drives up either the North or South shore of Superior, but are all limited by the long winters. Short-pitch rock and ice climbing opportunities are a lot better than you would think. Surfers tell me the surfing's not bad, for those maniacs willing to brave the frigid waters of Superior.

On the other hand, of course, I going to hazard a guess that even the majority of Outside Magazine's readers might be a little less than enthusiastic about what winter really means in the Twin Ports. This year, the ice went out on the big lake in early June.

Marc_C":pxfvd3mc said:
And filled with Minnesotans.
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Not just Minnesotans, but Dulutherans
 
For something like retirement where you are personally going to inhabit a property for a good percent of the time and own it for a number of years I've seen two salient points recently that I hadn't thought seriously about before in the context of a ski home purchase: consider getting a place where the locals live rather than where the tourists temporarily visit so you get more of a stable environment, and consider buying a single family home on an actual plot of land instead of a condo for a better ROI. Of course, I guess a positive ROI is never a given with vacation/resort property.
 
jimk":uwsjrhpu said:
For something like retirement where you are personally going to inhabit a property for a good percent of the time and own it for a number of years I've seen two salient points recently that I hadn't thought seriously about before in the context of a ski home purchase: consider getting a place where the locals live rather than where the tourists temporarily visit so you get more of a stable environment, and consider buying a single family home on an actual plot of land instead of a condo for a better ROI.
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Both of these are real estate maxims that are usually true, and a lot easier to come by in the SLC area than in many resort towns. However, I'm not sure I'd want a single family home if I was only going to be there 4-5 months a year. Before jamesdeluxe takes a swing at that softball, the decision to put oneself into that situation is a different one than a decision to leave one's longstanding residence of decades.
 
Relating what two retired couples I know have done:
1. Former coworkers retired and moved from CT to their retirement home on a lake in NH. For the past 4 seasons they've been spending Jan through early April in Utah in seasonal condo rentals.

2. My friends from the Seattle area kept their house there and bought a 3 BR condo in Sandy - they spend the full Alta season in UT, Seattle the rest of the year.

Friends of my mom did the same but opposite: summer in Park City and over-winter in Scottsdale AZ (golfers, not skiers).
 
Just reread this entire thread. Pretty cool really. We are going to some new forum software on NYSB and this makes me feel like the huge PITA to keep all the old posts is probably worth it.

Harvey44":1uar3bho said:
I'm still deciding where to retire. I would certain love North River. Lot's of friends up there. And let's face it when you are retired and living next door to alpine skiing, XC skiing, hiking, rafting and 100,000 acres of backcountry, you'll get the goods even in a marginal year. Also if you swing it right, hopefully you can afford to travel. But....still don't know.

The downside up there is really May 15 through July 15 - bug season. Otherwise the whole darn year is fantastic. I suppose I could use that time to work in my screened in ceramics studio, he fantasized.

SLC isn't out of the question. Or Burlington. Mmmm Burlington.
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Interesting that for me almost all of this is still true. Differences are, I"m definitely staying in the east, and instead of ceramics as my hobby I'm blogging. And it seems the bug season is longer now.
 
As I continue to look at an extended winter visit to ski country after retirement I am finding long term lodging to be the predominant cost driver. For example, a big summer destination like Jackson, WY has some cheap winter housing. Even factoring-in the expensive Jackson Hole season pass, staying there for two months in winter is potentially less expensive overall than buying the bargain priced Rocky Mtn Super Pass and staying in a condo for two months in Summit County or other areas of Colorado. If you consider a bedroom or basement apt in a group house you could beat the typical condo rental cost, but it is hard for a tourist to locate, negotiate, and get a good comfort factor on that sort of arrangement from afar.
Where there's a will, there's a way. :lol:
 
Admin":2v3tqbrt said:
What's a bug season?
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So I ran a google search with two terms ("Uintas" and "mosquitoes") and got this as my first result:

Mosquitoes are public enemy number one in the Uintas. They are everywhere, and they can drive you crazy. Bring strong repellent - it really helps.
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http://www.utah.com/playgrounds/uinta_mountains.htm

I've never backpacked in the mountains of Utah, but I've backpacked enough in the mountains of Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Wyoming, Alberta, British Columbia, and Kenya to form the impression that where mountains (1) receive enough precipitation to maintain high altitude lakes, streams and wetlands, and (2) have some period of summertime average overnight lows above freezing, mosquitoes will be present sometime during the summer months.
 
Mosquitoes in Utah are limited to only a couple of places, most predominantly the Uinta Mountains actually. But even there they only last a week or two in my experience. Compared with anywhere east of the Mississippi they are essentially a non issue.
 
Admin":1ab7fe5f said:
Mosquitoes in Utah are limited to only a couple of places, most predominantly the Uinta Mountains actually. But even there they only last a week or two in my experience. Compared with anywhere east of the Mississippi they are essentially a non issue.
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Just yesterday, it was reported that West Nile Virus has been found in Utah County. http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/w ... d5e3b.html

SLC has a Mosquito Abatement District. Who knew?

Even so, I'd assume Mosquitoes aren't much of any issue around SLC.

I spent a summer working and hiking extensively in the Whites. I've also logged hundreds of miles of wilderness canoeing over the last twenty plus years in Northern Minnesota (BWCAW), Western Ontario (Quetico, Woodland Caribou provincial parks), and Eastern Manitoba (Atikaki provincial park). These vast wilderness areas (the BWCAW, alone, is 1.5 million acres and 150 miles across) are technically North of the Mississippi, but seem to me to have more intense bug seasons than what I experienced in NH.

However, my hands-down most intense mosquito experiences occurred at high-altitude campsites in late July in the Beartooths (Montana) and Jasper (Alberta). I wonder if the short alpine growing (hatching and breeding) season makes the bugs that much more intense when they are around.
 
Find all the anecdotal evidence you wish to dig up, I can tell you through personal experience and with 100% honesty that I have seen precisely two mosquitoes all summer long. Think about that in the context of just how much time I spend recreating in the outdoors. And neither one was particularly interested in me.

What you've found online can be explained by the fact that both Utah County and Salt Lake County include extensive marshlands and wetlands along Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake, respectively, that create an environment that does not extend anywhere beyond those shorelines. There are even pelicans out there in that part of landlocked Utah. No one lives anywhere even remotely close to the Great Salt Lake, so any mosquito issues that may exist out there are non-issues for the human population other than duck hunters.

You may well have a point about the shorter life cycle in the high alpine areas. That may be the subject of research, and the Northern Rockies are a remarkably different climate then anywhere within Utah's borders. But I find it hard to imagine that anywhere could possibly be worse than the wilderness canoe waters of northern Minnesota and Ontario. At least when I lived in Florida they sprayed for mosquitoes there. Florida, though, is a true Jurassic Park for every other kind of creature imaginable, insect and otherwise, so I'm not really sure that I should throw that out there as a shining example . :lol:

The key to breeding mosquitoes is standing water, but my comments regarding bugs in Utah are not limited to mosquitoes. There's really not much here at all besides ants, a single week of biting black flies in the Uintas and the occasional spider or beetle, for any insect requires reliable water to breed and survive. There's certainly nothing here that would annoy you persistently. The Northeast is insect hell by comparison. Scratch that... There really is no comparison.
 
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