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96avs01 wrote:

MarthaP wrote:

96avs01 wrote:

Luciano136 wrote:In CO's favor though, you can be in big mountains from Denver in about 30min in the middle of the winter. Won't happen here...

Sure, with that Continental snowpack that likes to avy. Prefer to drive a little further and enjoy the Coastal pack myself. YMMV

There's ALWAYS someplace to ski in CO - you just have to be intelligent about it, read the forecasts, and dig a pit. There are avys in CA as well - try that traverse from Alpine Meadows to Squaw sometime, or hang out around Kirkwood.

Besides, the CO champagne powder will beat out Sierra Cement or Cascade Concrete any day.

Never said there weren't CA avys, and I have been to both those areas. I would rather have a few less pow days in trade for more days in the backcountry on a more stable snowpack. Hope more in CA are enticed by that champagne pow and decide to head your way.

No WONDER you like crappy snow - knuckle-draggers do better in crud than in pow!

Ego snow! Ego snow!

I believe all that nice weather in CA makes Sierra alpinists quite soft. What's the old saying? Climbing K2 in summer is good training for climbing Longs in winter. How can you expect to climb in the greater ranges with all that sunshine, solid granite etc. if you never climb choss in T-storms, blizzards or unpredictable weather and snowpack?[/aww-snap!]

Amen, Red! I got tired of the coastal regions because of all the damned coastal air conditioning. I finally said if it was going to rain, it needed to rain instead of the dreary drizzle. Inland has that awful Thule fog.

At least in Colorado the weather is WEATHER and clearly defined. When it rains, it rains, none of this wishy-washy stuff. When you have to take this into consideration for treks it makes one a lot more connected to the mountains and their rhythms.

Redpoynte wrote:I believe all that nice weather in CA makes Sierra alpinists quite soft. What's the old saying? Climbing K2 in summer is good training for climbing Longs in winter. How can you expect to climb in the greater ranges with all that sunshine, solid granite etc. if you never climb choss in T-storms, blizzards or unpredictable weather and snowpack?[/aww-snap!]

True enuf.....

Do folks climb Longs in the winter???

I admit we don't do to much choss climbing, T-storms are always going on out in the Desert, you can see the clouds from LA. The predictable weather does get boring...... as far as the snowpack goes, ours lasts way longer than that puffie pow... that"s gone by march. We ski on July 4th almost every year.

Greater Ranges? Why? where? You mean over in Asia?

For a climber, California is obviously great. It's too bad, though, you run out of 14ers to do so quickly (& 13ers if you're ambitious)... California doesn't have the Diamond, either. Not to mention the ol' Sierra Cement doesn't hold a candle to Colorado's pow... Oh yeah, then there's the unfortunate fact of having to drive 6 (or more) hours to get to the MOUNTAINS if you have the desire to live in anything resembling a city (as opposed to an hour or so from Denver). Ice climbing in California? Better be committed & be, um, driven, to do any good WI in the winter. I hate the permit system in California, & the overcrowding, while understandable given the throngs that live in the state, is still a buzz kill. While the weather is (often) way more conducive to doing pitch after pitch (after pitch...) in the high country, the lush vegetation (& even the apocolyptic afternoon thunderstorms) of Colorado are quite endearing. California has no mountain towns with half the character (or views) of places like Ouray, Telluride, Durango, ... While people getting themselves into deep shit on Half Dome's Cables route is often tragic, the vast majority of Coloradans would have more than enough common sense to stay away from something like that under questionable conditions...

After Dave Rearick & Kamps did the FA of the Diamond, Dave liked CO so much he decided to stay there...

All that being said, though, the Sierra are a great range. Anyone with the idea that Colorado is 'second-rate,' though, likely hasn't spent any considerable time there.

It takes you 6 hrs to drive to the Mts...????

And no, we don't have Longs, but we do have El Cap.

And no, Colorado is not second rate by any means.

But Florida is.

Redpoynte wrote:I believe all that nice weather in CA makes Sierra alpinists quite soft. What's the old saying? Climbing K2 in summer is good training for climbing Longs in winter. How can you expect to climb in the greater ranges with all that sunshine, solid granite etc. if you never climb choss in T-storms, blizzards or unpredictable weather and snowpack?[/aww-snap!]

I don't know. Go out in CA in winter and it feels MUCH colder than in CO. 0F in CO is like -20F here. Humiditiy = cold!

SF to Tuolumne- 5 hours. Mammoth- another half hour; Bishop, Lone Pine, etc.- even further

Also, the rangers in Yosemite do their very best to negate the positive experience of a visit to the Incomparable Valley (or Tuolumne)- FAR more bullshit from those asswipes than in any other national park than I've ever experienced... completely unnecessary.

fatdad wrote:

chicagotransplant wrote:The best part about Colorado? All the people from California are in California instead of here

If you rock climb, it's pretty hard to beat Boulder for convenience to the crags. That's about as good as it gets. But the people? I don't know. I think that's a serious detraction. I was considering moving to Colorado way back but met a lot of people with attitudes straight out of Alabama.

Hey, fatdad. I'm a gun-owning, pick-up truck driving, hard-working personal responsibility zealot who lives in Colorado and is married to a man born and raise in Alabama (who still says things like "Fixin' ta").

Perhaps you can further expand what you mean by the above comment?

Diggler wrote:SF to Tuolumne- 5 hours. Mammoth- another half hour; Bishop, Lone Pine, etc.- even further

Also, the rangers in Yosemite do their very best to negate the positive experience of a visit to the Incomparable Valley (or Tuolumne)- FAR more bullshit from those asswipes than in any other national park than I've ever experienced... completely unnecessary.

It may be 5 hrs to TM, but you pass up lots of great stuff 2 climb on your way.

And yes we do have the BEST rangers on the planet "protecting the Valley" ....

Yeah, I'm in.

I have lived here all my life, and in my limited travel, I love California

I've been to most states in the US and there are very few where I would live. Overall, the + definitely outweighs the - in CA. It's really hard to beat its diversity.

Diggler wrote:SF to Tuolumne- 5 hours. Mammoth- another half hour; Bishop, Lone Pine, etc.- even further

Damn, it's not much more than that from Vegas to Tuolumne -- less than 6 hours for sure. It's only 5 hours to Mammoth and 3.5 to Lone Pine (230 miles from my house in Henderson).

There is variety of stuff within a few hours in ALL directions. Red Rock 30 minutes (closer if you live on the west side); San Diego 4.5 hours; Joshua Tree 3 hours; Sierra 3.5 hours; Zion 2.5 hours; Grand Canyon North Rim 4 hours; South Rim 3.5 hours; and even Moab, Arches, and Canyonlands are less than 6 hours. When I drive to West Yellowstone, Montana, it only takes about 10 hours, thanks to Interstate 15. And the Colorado Rockies are about the same distance.

It is a longer-than-desired drive having to go all the way around to the west side of Yosemite or Sequoia, though.

But the best thing is that on weekends, unlike living in southern CA, there is no traffic heading out on Friday and in on Sunday. I am always driving in the opposite direction of the gambling retards coming into Vegas for the weekend. I call them retards, but I love them; they support our entire economy here!

Day, yes Vegas is pretty centrally located and close to tons of great stuff. The only real minus is that the Average daily temperature is like 156 degrees.

But in it's favor is the fact that the Red Rock Rangers are only one step down in ass-hole-ness from the Yosemite ones. So when you get to the Valley you will be up for dealing with them.

Watching Fat gamblers stuffing nickel slots, than hitting the 24/7 buffet is one of the highlights of any trip to the Red Rocks.