Affordable ski towns

[Amie H]

We had an interesting discussion here once about the dark side of ski towns after National Geographic reported on high suicide rates in ski towns. The article is linked in the first post. Unfortunately it doesn't have the comments anymore. The story resonated with a lot of people, who had shared their experiences in the article comments.

Why are ski towns seeing more suicides?

I almost hesitate to put a link to this article here on the forum because it's so dark and troubling. But since many among us dream of living in ski communities -- or live there already -- I thought I'd go with it. Suicide is a real health issue, so it's certainly something we can't ignore. I...

www.theskidiva.com

There was a similar (and sad) article in Rolling Stone a few years ago about high suicide rates for men in their 30s-40s in Northern Mountain states that moved me when I read it. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/suicide-rate-america-white-men-841576/

Social media often portrays homesteaders, tiny/alternative home dwellers, on remote tracts, living as if in a faerie garden. As a rural homeowner since 2007, I can honestly say, yes, the increased variety of songbirds at the feeder is pretty neat. The stars at night in the dark sky are breathtaking. The abject poverty of the few people who live in the nearest town south of us (pop 1,100) is depressing and a little frightening. That is the location of our nearest grocery store, hardware store, and hospital. Like so much of the rural US, the opioid epidemic has made its way into the small hamlets nearby, towns that were formerly plagued with alcoholism and myriad disadvantages wrought by poverty.

And yet...
The town just 8 min north of us has exploded into a wild scramble of new luxury building (homes starting at $1.5MM) and real estate speculation. No, not a ski resort nearby, but related in that it's an upscale destination resort. It's Sand Valley Golf, that has people driving their Porsches from Texas and Tennessee up to our sandy glacial remains forests (yes, I've taken note of the license plates!)

As you may have guessed, the homes are not being bought for full-time use. Many are snapped up by rental investors or law/investment firms to lend to their best clients, or just folks using for a second home (3 hr or less drive from Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, Chicago burbs.) There is no grocery store, just a gas station convenience store and a Dollar General, although in season there is a weekday Farmer's Market.

Currently, there is no "town center" but there is a master plan to build an integrated retail/residential complex with a variety of housing options (condo, townhome, etc.) I'm not sure a large retail complex could be supported by part-timers, even affluent ones.

 

[NWSkiGirl]

There are probably always people who work at ski mountains who live full time in nearby ski towns. Meaning towns with populations under 5000. Examples in Colorado include Pagosa Springs, Durango, Leadville, Dillon, and Telluride. For comparison, Steamboat Springs has almost 15,000 residents. As noted earlier Bozeman has a population over 50,000. Bend in Oregon has over 100,000 residents. Jackson, WY has more than 10,000 residents, Driggs and Victor across Teton Pass in ID have about 5000 residents combined.

The tricky part is for ski resort employees is finding work that pays the bills year round, especially in the big mountains in the west. Summer activities didn't become the norm on Forest Service land until 7-8 years ago.

When I moved from New York City to Chapel Hill, NC the population of Chapel Hill was around 25,000. It's a university town not that far from a couple cities that had around 100,000 residents. I was in high school. Fair to say it took a while to get adjusted.

Have you spent much time in a town with a permanent population under 5000?

I didn't know summer activities weren't popular until recently! They have really exploded.

Here's my story... When I decided to have this baby I told myself that I can be poor. I can let go of life's luxuries because I want a baby. But only on one condition: If I can live near skiing and ski as much as I want each winter. So I thought I was going to go live near Mt Shasta and ski there with baby. I had lived near there as a teen. But with the fires that's no longer an option! So I'm looking for my Plan B. The idea is to find the best place I can where we are very close to skiing.

 

[NWSkiGirl]

Uhh. Yeah. This town is not only a ski town but near Glacier National Park. Winter season is minor compared to summer. The town was here way before skiing showed up. That being said, the resort is a big economic driver in both winter and summer, but the town gets more revenue from being close to Glacier. There's also logging, the railroad, and the medical center. It is never a ghost town, altho I could easily make a left hand turn last night.

Bozeman isn't really a ski town. It's a college town that has Bridger near by. If Bridger closed they would never notice. They've gotten so big they don't need it to survive. Big Sky is too far away to really impact them either. The drive between them isn't something you want to do every night. Big Sky itself is not much of a town without the ski area.

The same can't be said of other ski towns, tho. Some are scary empty out of season.

I think I'm okay with all that as long as skiing is nearby. I guess I should change the title of this thread to "Affordable towns very near skiing." lol

 

[NWSkiGirl]

The thing I'd be wary of in a ski/resort town is being surrounded by short term rentals. Community/neighbors are important to me and I wouldn't want to be surrounded by people I'll never get that with, or that won't bring in my packages and keep an eye on my place when I'm out of town. But, there are HOAs that prohibit short term rentals.

I think of Whistler as an example. I talked to someone who lived there for a season and he said he didn't like it. He said he kept meeting skiers from out of town, and he'd ski with them for the weekend and then they'd be gone and he'd need to find new people to ski with. He said he was lonely.

But I'm sure there are families up there to connect with. Of course WAY out of my budget.

 

[NWSkiGirl]

We had an interesting discussion here once about the dark side of ski towns after National Geographic reported on high suicide rates in ski towns. The article is linked in the first post. Unfortunately it doesn't have the comments anymore. The story resonated with a lot of people, who had shared their experiences in the article comments.

Why are ski towns seeing more suicides?

I almost hesitate to put a link to this article here on the forum because it's so dark and troubling. But since many among us dream of living in ski communities -- or live there already -- I thought I'd go with it. Suicide is a real health issue, so it's certainly something we can't ignore. I...

www.theskidiva.com

Sad and surprising to hear!

 

[NWSkiGirl]

Oh! I thought of one other item you will want to research no matter where you go: how many/which internet providers are in town. As a remote worker, you will need solid internet, and in a town with multiple options (including over the air hot spots/:whole home wifi from cellular providers) you can switch if one isn't working out for you.

At my cabin in rural Wisconsin, there is no broadband available. I looked into getting a whole house internet through Verizon; not available in that zip code. You have to go satellite internet or use the very sketchy DSL (yes, that still exisits) from the local telecom (land line) company. The DSL was so miserably unreliable, we got rid of it after a year. My EE husband built a custom workaround for us that is stable/reliable but requires using a proxy while there. That means we can't use out Roku, so no streaming except by using our laptops.

Also consider that if you go condo, you may only have one wired broadband/FIos option in that building (but might be able to go whole house wifi through Verizin, T Mobile, etc.)

THANK YOU for this! That's going to be a non negotiable.

 

[NWSkiGirl]

There was a similar (and sad) article in Rolling Stone a few years ago about high suicide rates for men in their 30s-40s in Northern Mountain states that moved me when I read it. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/suicide-rate-america-white-men-841576/

Social media often portrays homesteaders, tiny/alternative home dwellers, on remote tracts, living as if in a faerie garden. As a rural homeowner since 2007, I can honestly say, yes, the increased variety of songbirds at the feeder is pretty neat. The stars at night in the dark sky are breathtaking. The abject poverty of the few people who live in the nearest town south of us (pop 1,100) is depressing and a little frightening. That is the location of our nearest grocery store, hardware store, and hospital. Like so much of the rural US, the opioid epidemic has made its way into the small hamlets nearby, towns that were formerly plagued with alcoholism and myriad disadvantages wrought by poverty.

And yet...
The town just 8 min north of us has exploded into a wild scramble of new luxury building (homes starting at $1.5MM) and real estate speculation. No, not a ski resort nearby, but related in that it's an upscale destination resort. It's Sand Valley Golf, that has people driving their Porsches from Texas and Tennessee up to our sandy glacial remains forests (yes, I've taken note of the license plates!)

As you may have guessed, the homes are not being bought for full-time use. Many are snapped up by rental investors or law/investment firms to lend to their best clients, or just folks using for a second home (3 hr or less drive from Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis, Chicago burbs.) There is no grocery store, just a gas station convenience store and a Dollar General, although in season there is a weekday Farmer's Market.

Currently, there is no "town center" but there is a master plan to build an integrated retail/residential complex with a variety of housing options (condo, townhome, etc.) I'm not sure a large retail complex could be supported by part-timers, even affluent ones.

Interesting! I agree neighbors are important. None of that sounds great.

 

[marzNC]

I think I'm okay with all that as long as skiing is nearby. I guess I should change the title of this thread to "Affordable towns very near skiing." lol

Along with the size of the town/city, another consideration is the size of the mountain and the length of the season.

I'm about to go visit old friends who live in southern Oregon. Mt. Ashland (non-profit) is an easy hour drive away, with very little mountain driving. Mt. Bachelor is close enough for a few weekend ski trips each season. Lodging in Bend or Sun River is relatively easy to find during the winter, mostly because it's much more popular during the summer. It's a shorter drive than what I did driving to northern VA from central NC when my daughter was in elementary school. They have several grandchildren still in K-12, including families who moved north from Southern California a couple decades ago. Fair to say that it's a good place for families.

Public transport to the slopes and after school program could be another consideration. For Brighton, there are multiple school buses that show up in the afternoon full of kids K-5 learning to ski. Middle school and high school students can take the UTA bus in the afternoons/evenings. Wachusett (near Boston) has buses showing up midweek afternoon full of kids from public and private schools.

 

[marzNC]

didn't know summer activities weren't popular until recently! They have really exploded.

The laws that governed what the U.S. Forest Service could approve as improvements for commercial use of forest land didn't allow for any activities before a major change around 2011. It took a few years for new rules for the approval process to be developed. That's why the first alpine slides or zip lines on forest land weren't actually built until after 2015. For instance, Steamboat's alpine slides didn't open until 2017. Now there are plenty of revenue-generating activities at Colorado destination resorts.

In the east, there were 4-season ski resorts starting decades ago in New England, New York, and the Mid-Atlantic. My home hill in northern VA, Massanutten, opened in the early 1970s. The ski slopes were an amenity that was on a resort with 5000+ acres of private land that included a golf course and an outdoor swimming pool. By 2005 there were two 18-hole golf courses, multiple pools, and an indoor/outdoor water park. Jiminy Peak in western MA is another example of a 4-season resort that has been around for 50+ years. The big cities (Boston, New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia) have had people who enjoy summer vacations in nearby mountains since the 1800s.

 

[liquidfeet]

....Also an instructor working with an older women who was clearly a never-ever. The student didn't have a jacket, ski pants, gloves, or a helmet....

I've taught never-evers on 10º F days who didn't have goggles, neck covers, and who wore Isotoner gloves (thin cloth). No helmets either, so just a wool beanie. It gets cold in New England. They just didn't know.

 

[marzNC]

I've taught never-evers on 10º F days who didn't have goggles, neck covers, and who wore Isotoner gloves (thin cloth). No helmets either, so just a wool beanie. It gets cold in New England. They just didn't know.

LOL. I see it all the time at Massanutten, but that's in Virginia.

That day at Bridger wasn't cold. Certainly not by Montana standards. The high was about 30 that March Sunday, with lots of sunshine.

 

[Pequenita]

I think of Whistler as an example. I talked to someone who lived there for a season and he said he didn't like it. He said he kept meeting skiers from out of town, and he'd ski with them for the weekend and then they'd be gone and he'd need to find new people to ski with. He said he was lonely.

This resonates with me. It can happen in any transient area. I lived in a very transient part of an already transient city for 14 years, and about halfway into that 14 years, I started losing — I actually counted this — 7 to 8 friends a year to them moving away. Although some of them were still in the metro area, they were still a 45 minute drive away due to traffic (and taking 45 minutes to go 20 miles is miserable). At the same time, my former city is a popular tourist destination, and friends were often coming in and visiting. It was great to catch up, but it was a social life that I didn't really like.

I joke that right now in my new community I have 5 non-work friends. But it's so much easier to get together and do impromptu paddles, drinks, skis, etc., and it is a social life far less dependent on people coming to visit.

Having a child in some ways will make it easier to establish a network in a new community - the issue is going to be whether you like the other parents / your child likes the kids of the parents you like, etc.

 

[Amie H]

One suggestion I thought of, although it's further East: Pittsburgh, PA. I love that place: affordable housing, big city amenities, great healthcare, a number of large universites in town, very "neighborhood-y" and homey.

It's in a valley of the Allegheny Mountains, so hardly "Out West" skiing, but there are a few resorts very near the city (hour drive), albeit with a short seasons and not a ton of vertical. There is more skiing a little further in central PA and West Virginia. That said, outside of skiing, there is a ton of other "outdoorsy" things to do.

Probably not what you are looking for, but my daughter was very sad to move from there to the Seattle area this year, her neighborhood was so great. She got to know many of the small business owners, and shopped locally. And of course everything was more affordable.

 

[Knitjenious]

In the Pittsburgh vein, here in Buffalo I can get to 3 (tiny!! But family friendly and imminently affordable for skiing) ski hills in under an hour, another three in 1.5 to 2 hours. Cost of living is so affordable compared to much of the country. Though if you want no state taxes, we are the wrong place! Lol

 

[marzNC]

The mention of PA and NY brings to mind another way to get a sense of the ski community in some regions. If you can find a regional ski forum, can get some sense of what the local skiing is like. For Pittsburgh, there are folks who have been on DCSki for a long time. For NY in general, there is the NYSkiblog.

 

[Christy]

I wonder how many towns in the West are even are only 20 minutes from a ski resort. It could be interesting to put together a list.

WA
Wenatchee, if you live in the south part of town and there isn't ski traffic or poor roads.

 

[sibhusky]

I'm 16 minutes garage to parking lot. The people in Whitefish actually get there faster, as they don't have to drive down and back up again. Plus there's the SNOW bus, so they don't really have to drive at all.

I don't think Bridger is that far from Bozeman, maybe 20 minutes, but Bozeman is big enough that if you're on the wrong side of town that could easily double. Big Sky Resort is over an hour.

Missoula is 27 minutes from Snowbowl

Schweizer is about 35 minutes from Sandpoint.

 

[marzNC]

I wonder how many towns in the West are even are only 20 minutes from a ski resort. It could be interesting to put together a list.

Interesting question.

I used the OpenSnow map for California to take a look. Except for the Tahoe towns on the CA side, didn't see any towns less than an hour from a ski area/resort.

The drive up the mountain from central Santa Fe, NM to Ski Santa Fe is 16 miles but takes a solid 30 minutes. The tight curves stay icy even days after the last snow during a low snow season.

The drive from the town of Taos to Taos Ski Valley is 25-30 minutes with dry road. If you don't arrive early enough on a weekend, it's very slow once you reach the parking lot as people get to the next available space. Especially noticeable on Saturdays when a lot of kids and adults in weekly programs show up for morning lessons. I usually stay in town for a few nights to help with altitude adjustment. Usually Saturday is my first ski day.

 

[Christy]

The only one I can see in OR that's within 20 minutes of a town is the tow rope/T-bar operation at Ferguson Ridge near Joseph. That's a tiny ski area servicing a town of less than 2000 people. It's a super pretty area though.

ID has a bunch of tiny rope tow type ski areas serving tiny towns. The one larger ski area, with actual lifts, 20 minutes from a town that hasn't been mentioned here is Brundage near McCall. Median home sale price in McCall is 842k. It's a popular area for retirees.

 

[marzNC]

ID has a bunch of tiny rope tow type ski areas serving tiny towns. The one larger ski area, with actual lifts, 20 minutes from a town that hasn't been mentioned here is Brundage near McCall. Median home sale price in McCall is 842k. It's a popular area for retirees.

McCall gets mentioned often when people in the Indy Pass FB Group ask where to ski out west. Or want suggestions for where stay for Brundage and Tamarack after flying to Boise.

Boise is a city that's been growing quite a bit in the last few decades. Now about 250,000, which is double the population in 1990. When I flew into Boise in 2018 there was a very slick magazine about the city that I picked up at the airport. At the time, there was clearly interest in more growth. Not sure the locals would still feel that way in 2023.