So my job has been transferred from Fort Collins, CO to San Jose, CA. I am having a real hard time trying to convince myself this move is a good thing. Just wanting some input from people living in the Bay area. I climb(sport, trad, alpine), cycle(both road and mtn), but backcountry snowboarding is what I can't get enough of.

I guess the biggest issue is moving from 100K people to 1+million and having to live in suburban hell. I know weekends will be good for getting out and exploring a new place but what about the weekdays? Is it just too spread out and congested to play on the weekdays? Is it that bad of a drive to the Sierras? How's the surfing in Santa Cruz?

Give me your thoughts.

There are some real nice areas outside of San Jose so you wouldn't have to live right in the middle of 1 million plus people. Also, what about a short commute of say 30 to 45 minutes? Then you have even more options and your "commute" to The Sierra would be shorter. I would suggest Pleasanton, nice town 30 minutes NE of San Jose. Depending on where in The Sierra you are going, your travel time is 3 to 6 hours.

From San Jose:
Kyburz/Lover's Leap- 3 hrs 45 minutes
Kirkwood Area- 3 1/2 hours
Yosemite- 4 hours
Sonora Pass- 4 hours
Mammoth Area- 5 hrs. 45 min.

I lived in San Jose for a few years. The best part of it was easy access to the Santa Cruz mtns. The mtn biking there is terrific and year round. Big Basin has great hiking and mtn biking, Wilder ranch has awesome mtn biking, soquel demo state forest is good biking, as well as morgan hill area. Surfing is good in santa cruz as well. Access to the sierra, tahoe, and yosemite is a bit more of pain than sf or oaktown, but totally doable for a weekend. There are also lots of open spaces around san jose and the peninsula which are good for getting out and mtn biking. The congestion is definitely an issue though, especially if you want to get out after work, the roads around san jose can be pretty ridiculous traffic-wise. I wouldn't recommend living too far from your job or you will get stuck in traffic jams everyday. The commute to Pleasanton, IMO, would be awful. You can definitely make the most of it and one of the best parts is the great weather year round which facilitates a lot of getting out there.

Do you like wine...?

Hi rjnfoco,

Over the years my career took me to various places around the US until I settled into Black Forest/Colorado Springs for over a decade now. Some I didn't like the weather and they were too far from anything resembling a mountain (Austin! Cincinnati!), some were too ghetto (St. Louis & Philly, where you need a flack vest to visit the bank), etc. The great big currents in the ocean of life take us to places we may least expect. In the end, it's all what you make of it. You have the chance to make lemon aid out of lemons...or sit around and complain that the fruit is too bitter.

I worked for a company in Mountain View, CA, near San Jose. There is plenty for the outdoorsperson to do in that area. Yes, the south bay area traffic is going to shock you. Yes, the cost of living is obscene. But there are worse places to be.

One of these days I will spend 6 months nestled deeply into the Rocky Mountains on a bazillion mountainous acres and 6 months baking in the sun in my beloved Sonoran Desert. Until then, I'll settle for most of the year on the eastern slope of Colorado and a few weeks of the year in SE Arizona...and make the most of it!

Enjoy yourself, wherever you end up! All the best to you!

hightinerary wrote:Do you like wine...?

Not that you can't buy great wine in the South Bay, but 90 minutes north is The Sonoma Valley- go there for the best wines and wineries.
Yes, our wine is better than Napa's.

I love the mountains and have greatly enjoyed the six weeks or so that I've spent in the CO mountains, but as someone who also loves the ocean I'd find living so far away from the water to be a hardship. Surfing here is good, and not just in Santa Cruz (ever hear of the Mavericks competition near Half Moon Bay)? If you like Santa Cruz but like a more rural setting you can live in the mountains just North of there (e.g., Scotts Valley, Felton, etc) and commute to San Jose via Hwy 17 (my girlfriend did it for years). The scuba diving in Monterey is outstanding, and one of the most diverse marine ecosystems in the world is here. Kayaking, wind/kite surfing, sailing, and fishing are popular. Marin county just to the north is where mountain biking first became popular, and there are lots of places around the area to ride.

For climbing, Yosemite has world class trad and big wall, Tahoe has outstanding trad and sport climbing, Bishop has awesome alpine climbing in the Sierra and sport climbing and bouldering in the Tablelands, Castle Rock a few miles south of San Jose is a well known year-round bouldering area (many of the Yosemite big names, and some newer climbers like Chris Sharma got started there), the Pinnacles (mostly sport climbing) is less than two hours away. Lee Vining Canyon is one of the best water ice climbing spots on the west coast, and there are many climbable alpine ice couloirs in the Sierra. Northern Cal even has a couple of Cascade volcanoes (Shasta and Lassen) that you can climb and ski if you are so inclined.

As for the specific question of snowboarding, I'm more into XC & snowshoeing myself, but the Sierra in winter are spectacular, weather relatively mild, and snow is good unless it's an unusually dry year.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqWt49o7R-k[/youtube]

Another perspective:

http://www.ohyourgod.com/2012/01/san-francisco-bay-area-map-funny.html

Yah gotta double click on the image to see the real detail..

Good luck!

I live in San Jose and can deal with it, but then I grew up in LA. Traffic will suck. The weather is very nice and you will pay for it if you rent or buy. Good place to live if you want to build a career in high tech - more options here than anywhere and they pay well. If you want to climb or snowboard you have to get used to lots of driving. If you're already sweet on Fort Collins and your job isn't your priority, stay there and find another job nearby. In the long run you'll thank yourself.

I grew up in San Jo. It's a great city. World class sports, education, diversity, technology, hub, and weather. A place that allowed a spoiled suburban kid like me the opportunity to experience western awesomeness, watch sunsets over the ocean during campouts as long as I can remember, play football outside on Thanksgiving and during Super Bowl commercials, take day field trips to Monterrey Bay and Alcatraz and to Missions, start backpacking thru wilderness areas in 2nd grade, fall in love with the CA landscape and the Sierra Nevadas, sit through an Evolution Valley thunderstorm while playing cards at age 11, spend senior cut day at the beach, go to college in places like Cal Poly and Humboldt, and steer my career to forestry.
While it's not the ideal place for what I do for a living now, I wouldn't have known otherwise if growing up elsewhere.

The biggest problem would be the snowboarding, which would be a 3.5-5 hour drive, or flight to Mammoth, away...same distance for trips to any of the high elevation mountains in the state.



rjnfoco, in what part of San Jose would you be working? You mentioned the miles of suburbia. Your weekday activities, feeling of suburbia, and the amount of time spent in traffic may vary greatly depending on the exact location of your job and your housing. There are very rural places in the general area.

Cycling to work could be an option with the consistenlty great weather. Depending on location, you may even be near a bike path. There are great hills/mountains for cycling, mountaing biking, and hiking all around the edges of the area, with the exception of the bay.

montanaceltic and JHH60 gave a good overview of what is easily available, especially if you happen to settle on the southern or western edges of the area. I'll add that Santa Clara county has an extensive park system and Henry Coe State Park is awesome for mountain biking.



Here's a map that may help if you end up needing a place to live in the area:

Well, methinks you'll be further away from snow sports, but year-round sports will be very close at hand. Cost of living would be the other main consideration.

Having lived in the south bay, berkeley and now tahoe, I couldn't go back. I could see a temporary stay in berkeley for a few years for school or something, but never again for the south bay. The santa cruz mountains are nearby and great for both road and mountain biking, but the agencies that manage them are full of big city rules. I know multiple people who've gotten $100 tickets for leaving the parking lot several minutes after sunset (closing time), along with a serious berating from rangers. If you have or want to own a dog, it won't be welcome anywhere. If you want to play there during the week, get used to waking up early. More than likely you'll wind up just cycling from the office and hitting a climbing gym at night.

The real mountains aren't too bad without traffic, but double any drive times for Friday night. If you're headed north or east, large parts of the bay are emptying out ahead of you; try leaving SJ at 3pm and you'll still get caught in serious commute traffic by the time you reach the 680/580 junction or 80 in Berkeley. You can wait for hours in chain control traffic on 80, or spend the whole drive into Yosemite dodging slower traffic on the precious few passing lanes that exist. People who live in the bay area and are serious about the backcountry generally spend a lot of time in their cars between friday and sunday nights.

Notice how many responses talk about all the great stuff within 4-5 hours of SJ (true), and how it's not so bad if you don't actually live there but rather do some batshit crazy commute like santa cruz -> SJ.

Can you fly out and spend 2-3 weeks living in SJ? If your company already has a presence there and is consolidating, they should have no problem putting you up in a hotel and letting you work from the central office. If you're not ready to run away screaming at the end, more power to you. It should also make you realize just how much of a huge raise you'll need just to break even with cost of living increases.

I can understand your dilemma. To most people having the Sierras/Yosemite 3.5hrs away (assuming you leave on Sat morning) sounds great, but its 3.5hrs each way, every weekend. I lived there for almost 7 years and did it weekend in and weekend out. Now I live where I can go out to amazing rock climbing within 6-30 minutes and you get spoiled. There is a big difference in driving 30 minutes and 3.5 hours when it comes to day trips, getting out after work,.....

As for ice climbing, if you are a fairly decent ice climber, you'll climb every ice climb at Lee Vining in a couple of weekends. Ice in Yosemite forms up occassionally but it usually sticks around for a REALLY short period of time, and I'd hate to be the guy who road it to the ground when it does go. Outside of that it is pretty limited, with some stuff in the high Sierras. The couloirs are pretty good (probably better then the summer couloirs in Colorado).

The summer alpine rock is REALLY good (ie: Incredible Hulk) but its more like 7hours away...The driving part gets to suck after a while.