Former Ski Bum Looking For Ski Town Career

[mall walker]

Living in Sugarhouse is about as far out there you can get in SLC so neon hair should surprise no one. BTW, I am still looking for a good restaurant in SH, what am I missing?

Pago is great, more 9th/9th than SH though. Finn's Cafe for brunch. As far as right there in SH, I don't really eat there much. The new Wasatch (Squatters, but they're branding as Wasatch in SH) on 2100/Highland, and the Annex by Epic, and Flatbread I guess are all pretty decent, but if I'm eating out around SH I'd probably either go to Del Mar al Lago for ceviche, El Menos for cheap/good mexican, or go somewhere else honestly. Nothing in or around SH is as good as the good places in town.

[bigdude2468]

Pago is great, more 9th/9th than SH though. Finn's Cafe for brunch. As far as right there in SH, I don't really eat there much. The new Wasatch (Squatters, but they're branding as Wasatch in SH) on 2100/Highland, and the Annex by Epic, and Flatbread I guess are all pretty decent, but if I'm eating out around SH I'd probably either go to Del Mar al Lago for ceviche, El Menos for cheap/good mexican, or go somewhere else honestly. Nothing in or around SH is as good as the good places in town.

So I am not been anything. We do go to the Avenues occasionally and Pago's is good. I would rather go to the Porcupine than Squatters for Beer pub atmosphere. It just seems like SH would have some eclectic off beat good restaurants but I guess not.

[glademaster]

I wouldn't bother, I'd just get your degree find a nice mid sized mid west city and find a nice job. Buy a average house in the suburbs, find a hot wife who won't get too beat up having kids, have two good cars, and that perfect job, take your paid time off and go on a ski vacation and call it good.

or yes you can move to a ski town and live the life, over pay for a rat trap of a house, have pos car or two, get lucky and find a decent job that barely pays what it should so you can live the life, get in line and take your turn with some chick who either can out ski you or has been passed around town a few times, And if you do end up growing old getting married having kids buying a house you better hope your trust fund off sets the cost of living. But you will achieve life long ski bum status.

best of luck

This. Well, not exactly that, go be a ski bum for a few years first. Don't discount the soul-sucking vapidity of ski/mountain town "culture," as a major drawback to settling in places like that. I love skiing, and a whole host of other outdoor sports, but I'm aware that they will not always be the center of my existence, because that is a shallow, self-serving lifestyle. Having horseshit discussions about gear, stoke, and the general fuckwaddery that surrounds the outdoor sports world WILL get old, but it WILL be the primary topic of conversation in a mountain town.

If you enjoy listening to people try to sell you things, because you can't hack it in a ski town if you're not pimping something, and having the same tired, rehashed conversations with the same tired, self-important pieces of shit year after year, by all means, flock to any ski town in the west.

Do it for a couple years, you'll be glad you did, and you'll look back fondly at it, but I'm willing to bet you'll be ready to GTFO dodge after 3, 4 or 5 years.

[neck beard]

I wouldn't bother, I'd just get your degree find a nice mid sized mid west city and find a nice job. Buy a average house in the suburbs, find a hot wife who won't get too beat up having kids, have two good cars, and that perfect job, take your paid time off and go on a ski vacation and call it good.

That sounds revolting.

[pvars]

Living in Sugarhouse is about as far out there you can get in SLC so neon hair should surprise no one. BTW, I am still looking for a good restaurant in SH, what am I missing?

Not quite in Sugar House but Fresco Italian Cafe in the 15th/15th area is probably my favorite restaurant in SLC, especially if you can sit on the patio on a nice day.

Pho Thin is in SH and a pretty decent relatively new addition to the neighborhood.

[Benny Profane]

This. Don't discount the soul-sucking vapidity of ski/mountain town "culture," as a major drawback to settling in places like that. I love skiing, and a whole host of other outdoor sports, but I'm aware that they will not always be the center of my existence, because that is a shallow, self-serving lifestyle. Having the same horseshit discussions about gear, stoke, and the general fuckwaddery that surrounds the outdoor sports world WILL get old, but it WILL be the primary topic of conversation in a mountain town.


If you enjoy listening to people try to sell you things, because you can't hack it in a ski town if you're not pimping something, and having the same tired, rehashed conversations with the same tired, self-important pieces of shit year after year, by all means, flock to any ski town in the west.

Do it for a couple years, you'll be glad you did, and you'll look back fondly at it, but I'm willing to bet you'll be ready to GTFO dodge after 3, 4 or 5 years.

Thank you for verbalizing for me why I am not retiring to a western mountain town.

[PNWbrit]

Thank you for verbalizing for me why I am not retiring to a western mountain town.

I would imagine western mountain towns are already celebrating their good fortune..

Plus the sparsity of mattress vendors.

OK City for gods sake.

Surely OK city is proof there is no God?

[Franz]

I always find these threads fascinating because they really highlight the differences in peoples priorities. My advice, figure out whatever your priorities are and roll with it.

[Bromontana]

warning: glademaster is under 30 and lives in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Benny is who fucking knows how old and lives in a sea of 80 million people.

OP: Few things rival the vacuousness of living in a city where you can't engage in the recreation that balances out the frustrations of life. Not to mention you will be around fewer like-minded folk.

Periodic visits to places that aren't Texas is a compromise for someone that doesn't create a thread like this. They're for people who abandoned life in the mountains, certainly not a crime but not something I'd wish on anyone.

If you walk away from the resorts and their shallow, unfulfilling luxuries you might find an immensely rewarding life in a beautiful setting near people that share your passions.

Just don't drop out of school. And don't heckle the lollerbladers in Liberty Park, they're harmless.

[MontuckyFried]

I wouldn't bother, I'd just get your degree find a nice mid sized mid west city and find a nice job. Buy a average house in the suburbs, find a hot wife who won't get too beat up having kids, have two good cars, and that perfect job, take your paid time off and go on a ski vacation and call it good.

While the finances have been admittedly tough on me to live in a ski town, you just can't put a price on the powder to hardpack ratio. When I was a flatlander, I made more money and cost of living was way lower, which allowed me to take lots of ski trips each winter. Yet somehow, I'd always have the worst luck with conditions no matter how good the forecasts looked. I don't know how many times I'd have an instructor/shop rat/local tell me how insane it was the week before I came. And then just as easy as I'd miss out on the goods by being a couple days late, the freaking snow would always start flying the night I'd leave. Never failed. Out of dozens of ski trips, I had one....ONE....true powder day and that was at Wolf Creek, so odds are good there. Since I've lived in Montana, I can run out to the hill anytime I please. Now I've almost become a powder snob. If the snow hasn't been flying all night or the conditions aren't the greatest, then I can just sleep in and hit it up in the afternoon.

The insane access to wilderness is worth the hefty price of admission, too. No more hamster wheel (treadmill) exercise. No more lame parks that you have to share with a million other suburbanites. I just walk out my door, go a few blocks, and hike for miles with the pups. The stoke levels of my dogs have been at an all time high since being here. They get to eat mounds of elk crap, roll in all sorts of bear nastiness, swim to their hearts content, and run like mad. They've been fenced in before and there is a remarkable difference in their behavior. They're just straight up happy now.

Sure, sometimes I get tired of being broke as hell since I don't have a trust fund or sugar mama to depend on, but after years of living in suburbia, I wouldn't trade what I have for the fanciest house, the nicest car, or a fatter bank account. I say shoot first and ask questions later. That's what most I've met around here did. Just move to the ski town of your choice and figure out the details later. Responsible? Nah. Worth it? Absolutely. You'll figure it out if it's something you really want to do.

[grskier]

wow, some interesting responses.. I live in the 'mountains' and am a professional. I love where I live, like what I do, and have decided to settle and start a family. It's not easy to do it here, but if I were somewhere else, there would certainly be a different stack of crap to deal with..... and by the sounds of it, we have more good restaurants in the RFV than in SLC

[neck beard]

Being a devoted backcountry ski tourer makes life near the mountains a lot more meaningful.

Avoid expanding ski towns where spivs and opportunistic property playing non skiers dominate.

Anyway, what ever you choose in your 20s, expect to be wrong and embrace any change required to make it right, even if that is in you 40s. And marry an educated lady with a friendly happy personality. Who skis.

[Benny Profane]

warning: glademaster is under 30 and lives in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Benny is who fucking knows how old and lives in a sea of 80 million people.

OP: Few things rival the vacuousness of living in a city where you can't engage in the recreation that balances out the frustrations of life. Not to mention you will be around fewer like-minded folk.

Periodic visits to places that aren't Texas is a compromise for someone that doesn't create a thread like this. They're for people who abandoned life in the mountains, certainly not a crime but not something I'd wish on anyone.

If you walk away from the resorts and their shallow, unfulfilling luxuries you might find an immensely rewarding life in a beautiful setting near people that share your passions.

Just don't drop out of school. And don't heckle the lollerbladers in Liberty Park, they're harmless.

Your stuff reminds me of the vacuous stoner blather I consciously avoid in most of my life these days.

Even though I like to get stoned.

[MontuckyFried]

And marry an educated lady with a friendly happy personality. Who skis.

Yes, yes and yes. The only people I've met around here who aren't really happy being here are folks who are either non-skiers or married/living with a non-skier who just seem to be soul-sucking succubi. The couples who ski together are quite content, myself included. The only thing I might suggest if moving to a ski town is BYOW (bring your own wife) or import one, as the male:female ratio can be pretty appalling, and if you do bring a girl but aren't hitched already, you'll have thousands of dudes constantly hitting on her, some of who have way more money than you. Heard of plenty of chicks leaving their men after moving to ski towns after the endless hordes of dudes hitting on them makes their heads blow up to about 10x their normal size. So yeah, choose wisely. Or be a bachelor. Nothing wrong with that either.

[glademaster]

warning: glademaster is under 30 and lives in Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Benny is who fucking knows how old and lives in a sea of 80 million people.

OP: Few things rival the vacuousness of living in a city where you can't engage in the recreation that balances out the frustrations of life. Not to mention you will be around fewer like-minded folk.

True, and after college I spent two winters living and working in a lodge in Alta. Now I have a desk job in the valley, but did prioritize skiing and mountain living enough to deal with the commute and slightly higher cost of living. I also grew up not far from where Benny lives, and my name is Ben, while we're fleshing this thing out. Skiing is still a big part of my life, and I do relish the opportunity that living walking distance from a kickass resort is. That being said, rolling into my fourth winter of being fully immersed in the ski/mountain "thing," I can see a time in my life when I will begin to distance myself from that and re-arrange my life priorities.

Your spiel about the vacuousness of city living also rings true, but there's quite a range of places to live, work, fuck, and die other than the heart of a big city or a tiny, self-aggrandizing ski town.

It did bring back the memory of spending the summer between my first and second winter in Alta in Chicago. I moved back to settle down, get a real job and get married. Well, shit went south with the girl and I left Chicago to drive back to Ann Arbor for one last hurrah with some friends before rolling west for the winter. It was October, and driving out of the city, I was enthralled by the foliage and realized that it had been weeks since I had seen a tree, and had forgotten the leaves were changing. Don't live somewhere you are fully removed from nature, that is unhealthy, but so is slamming PBR every night and sleeping with the same woman that all your friends have already been through three times over.

I do see myself living a bit further from the mountains and skiing eventually, whether it's in the PNW, the north east or even (gasp!) Michigan, but only because I will have gotten my fill of "mountain culture immersion." I would never discourage someone from doing it in the first place, go to the mountains and feel it out, get wrapped up in the lifestyle and commit yourself to it wholeheartedly. In 3 or 4 years you may feel inklings of doubt about the sustainability of the lifestyle, you might lose friends to the mountains, or you might find your true calling, but you will undoubtedly be richer for the experience regardless of whether you settle in the mountains or Madison, WI.

[Benny Profane]

Being a devoted backcountry ski tourer makes life near the mountains a lot more meaningful.

Avoid expanding ski towns where spivs and opportunistic property playing non skiers dominate.

Anyway, what ever you choose in your 20s, expect to be wrong and embrace any change required to make it right, even if that is in you 40s. And marry an educated lady with a friendly happy personality. Who skis.

Oh, and yeah, the last part is pretty important. There's no pussy in ski towns.

[MontuckyFried]

True, and after college I spent two winters living and working in a lodge in Alta...
It did bring back the memory of spending the summer between my first and second winter in Alta in Chicago....
...I left Chicago to drive back to Ann Arbor for one last hurrah with some friends before rolling west for the winter.

Am I interpreting this correctly that you just spent winters in Alta? If so, you've missed out on the other best thing about living in a ski town...SUMMER! Summers in the mountains totally rock.

Funny how many seasonal people I see come and go through here. It's always the same old song and dance. Scramble to find a place to rent after it's too late. Shack up with twenty other bro-brahs. Party balls at the Broken Spoke/Mangy Moose/whatever local watering hole. All date the same two girls. Pack it all up in the spring and go back to whatever Midwest town you came from. Lather, rinse, repeat.

While it's true that that lifestyle would start out fun and certainly end up unfulfilling in the end, it's hardly indicative of what it's like to be in a ski town year-round. There is definitely a different vibe between the seasonal workers and the full-timers.

[glademaster]

Am I interpreting this correctly that you just spent winters in Alta? If so, you've missed out on the other best thing about living in a ski town...SUMMER! Summers in the mountains totally rock.

Funny how many seasonal people I see come and go through here. It's always the same old song and dance. Scramble to find a place to rent after it's too late. Shack up with twenty other bro-brahs. Party balls at the Broken Spoke/Mangy Moose/whatever local watering hole. All date the same two girls. Pack it all up in the spring and go back to whatever Midwest town you came from. Lather, rinse, repeat.

While it's true that that lifestyle would start out fun and certainly end up unfulfilling in the end, it's hardly indicative of what it's like to be in a ski town year-round. There is definitely a different vibe between the seasonal workers and the full-timers.

You are interpreting vaguely correctly, but to clarify, I only went back east between my first and second winters in Alta. I've lived in the Wasatch full time since November, 2012.

[MontuckyFried]

I only went back east between my first and second winters in Alta. I've lived in the Wasatch full time since November, 2012.

Ah, ok. My mistake. So you've been there, done that. Well, maybe mountain living just isn't for you, and that's ok. You're certainly welcome to go live in beautiful Omaha. You can make more money, find your trophy wife, enjoy your awesome, cheap house, and miss out on all the powder days you want.

[glademaster]

Ah, ok. My mistake. So you've been there, done that. Well, maybe mountain living just isn't for you, and that's ok. You're certainly welcome to go live in beautiful Omaha. You can make more money, find your trophy wife, enjoy your awesome, cheap house, and miss out on all the powder days you want.

Yes, because the decision is that bifurcated.

And mountain/forest/beautiful natural setting with outdoor opportunities living is not the same as ski town living. The latter is not for me, the former however, is a different story.

[Foggy_Goggles]

I think some of you that spent time in "ski towns" were doing it wrong. You make it sound like it's all no pussy, shitty food, overpriced housing, and culture dominated by self important douche bags. I'm not saying that don't exist, but you paint with a broad brush. Some people have a hard time getting laid, most restaurant food sucks, rent is expensive and some people suck...Everywhere. It's all about personal priorities, not right and wrong. Different things make different people happy. It took me a while to realize that cities are toxic for me. I prefer living in the sticks even if it means a pretty substantial drop in income.

[detrusor]

Man, I feel like I have won the life lottery reading this stuff. Lucky enough o live at the end of a dead end road in PC where I put the skins on in my driveway and ride to trails from my door. Work down in SLC for a less than 30 minute commute. Married the educated hot chick who rips, has a 6 figure income. You can have it all. I think PC being near a major metro area helps a ton....no reason to live n the winter air filth. Is skiing in PC great, no, better than average, yes. Short drive around to LCC and BCC from my place though

[neck beard]

Living in nature with good like-minded friends to share the joy with is 2/3rds of having a happy life. Freedom from suffering is the remaining third (suffering = bad food, debt burden, poor health, crime, grinding commutes, meaningless work, etc)

Nature.
Friends.
Freedom.

Hard to get all three.

[Name Redacted]

I think some of you that spent time in "ski towns" were doing it wrong. You make it sound like it's all no pussy, shitty food, overpriced housing, and culture dominated by self important douche bags. I'm not saying that don't exist, but you paint with a broad brush. Some people have a hard time getting laid, most restaurant food sucks, rent is expensive and some people suck...Everywhere. It's all about personal priorities, not right and wrong. Different things make different people happy. It took me a while to realize that cities are toxic for me. I prefer living in the sticks even if it means a pretty substantial drop in income.

This^

[neck beard]

Nature.
Friends.
Freedom.

...and a dog by your side.