East Coast Roll Call #??? 20-21 Covid closures and hard core touring! Be Fit or Sit

[cat in january]

Prices in Portland real estate have gone crazy. Check the rural school districts before choosing a town as can be a bit up and down. One of my main touring partners came from Washington state and he has been happy with the touring. Note he has no children and is willing to drive to the snow. Four seasons are nice and mountain biking is really taking off. Winter is long at five months and not the best with temperature swings If have specific questions feel free to message me.

[MyNameIsAugustWest]

The family and I are burnt out on Idaho and we need a change of scenery. Things are getting way to expensive and it is now to the point where we can’t make a comfortable living and create a proper future for our son. We’ve been doing our research and it looks like Maine is the best destination for us to land in (affordable with mountain biking/skiing/outdoors stuff). I know the conditions out East are different to say the least. Could anyone elaborate just how different things are? The skiing looks rad and skiing less pow won’t be that big of a deal. The real kicker for me would be the mountain biking and I haven’t been able to find much info about it. Currently looking to relocate to the Farmington area, but I do HVAC work and the better half is finishing up school to be a teacher so we could really live anywhere. Is there somewhere better to live with better biking and/or skiing? Sweet touring would be an added bonus as well.

Don't overlook NH. Low taxes and plenty of teaching jobs all over the state. PM jhyatt and/or strawjack for beta on the area around Cannon. PM buttahflake for beta on the MTB scene in SW NH. Unbelievable touring all over the Presidential Range and from what I hear, the MTB scene is growing rapidly (I don't MTB) up there. I live in SW NH and it's probably not what you're looking for but I live on a lake so there's that....

Now is the absolute worst time to buy a house though (this is true everywhere). Zillow is saying that the house I paid $375K for 18 months ago is now worth $550K. In reality, we could probably get $600K with the work I've put into it.

[Doremite]

Northern VT tends to get the best snow and has great MTB. I am sure NH and ME have great biking too but typically thin snow totals in comparison. I am bias but Jay Peak for skiing and East Burke for biking. Reasonably affordable real estate somewhere in between but that is driven by limited job opportunity. Per MNIAW, prices are high everywhere and most of VT’s economy centers around Burlington which is very expensive in comparison to the areas I mention above. My suggestion purely from a recreational perspective.

[singlecross]

I know the conditions out East are different to say the least. Could anyone elaborate just how different things are?

skiing less pow won’t be that big of a deal…

Currently looking to relocate to the Farmington area

I grew up in Western Maine and will give you some very short answers here…Feel free to PM me for my phone number and have a more in-depth conversation.

Farmington - centrally located to skiing (45 minutes each to Sugarloaf or Saddleback or Black Mountain), mountain biking, hiking and paddling. I went to college here and it would be my choice if I had to live in Western Maine.

Rangeley (Saddleback) or Carrabassett (Sugarloaf) can feel like a removed outpost. Talk to ticketchecker. But close to skiing and Rangeley would also be awesome in the Summer with a big lake and lots of hiking.

Rumford- avoid. Very provincial paper mill town. Trying to rebuild but its rough.

Bethel - Nice outdoorsy town. Talk to anotherVTskibum. I went to High School there. Amazing hiking right outside of town. Sunday River is a fine ski area but draws the most jongs because it’s closest to the major metros. Close to Mt Washington which will be the only mountain with a Western feel for touring. Talk to cat in January.

Skiing in New England is what it is… I’ll leave it at that. Bring or buy a skinny ski that carves. Most days are hardpack groomer days at the resorts. True powder skiing days can be counted in single digits unless you can plan to hit every storm or tour exclusively.

[Peruvian]

The family and I are burnt out on Idaho and we need a change of scenery. Things are getting way to expensive and it is now to the point where we can’t make a comfortable living and create a proper future for our son. We’ve been doing our research and it looks like Maine is the best destination for us to land in (affordable with mountain biking/skiing/outdoors stuff). I know the conditions out East are different to say the least. Could anyone elaborate just how different things are? The skiing looks rad and skiing less pow won’t be that big of a deal. The real kicker for me would be the mountain biking and I haven’t been able to find much info about it. Currently looking to relocate to the Farmington area, but I do HVAC work and the better half is finishing up school to be a teacher so we could really live anywhere. Is there somewhere better to live with better biking and/or skiing? Sweet touring would be an added bonus as well.


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Assuming you have school aged kids, I'd start by identifying school districts that you are comfortable with. Skiing and cycling are a far second place in my opinion to access to excellent education.

[Vt-Freeheel]

Crazy thunderstorm last night bob with the rain gauge recording 1 3/4" of water in approx. 15 minutes. Dime to nickel+ hail and big wind as well. Ran out midway with a shovel to divert some water causing driveway damage for the first time in ten years.
Coffer dam in the roadside ditch holding strong



Looks like the battle was lost



Bet there is some trail damage as some of the new dirt sidewalk wasn't built with heavy rainfall in mind.

[Dhiler17]

Assuming you have school aged kids, I'd start by identifying school districts that you are comfortable with. Skiing and cycling are a far second place in my opinion to access to excellent education.

Farmington schools look great (better half’s area of expertise), he’s still a couple years off from starting but he will likely be in whichever district mom is in. We currently live in a super small closed minded town so almost anything will be better than the current situation.


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[Dhiler17]

Prices in Portland real estate have gone crazy. Check the rural school districts before choosing a town as can be a bit up and down. One of my main touring partners came from Washington state and he has been happy with the touring. Note he has no children and is willing to drive to the snow. Four seasons are nice and mountain biking is really taking off. Winter is long at five months and not the best with temperature swings If have specific questions feel free to message me.

We have a long winter here too, not too worried about the cold/snow. Real estate is fucked in Idaho. Wall Street journal ranked my home town as the #1 place to move to this year on top of the influx of Californians over the past 6 years. House prices have doubled since 2016 and there’s no sign of things slowing down. We live 45 minutes out of town and it’s just as bad if not worse for housing. Part of the reason to hop on this pony now is to take advantage of the hot market even if we get dinged a little getting into something new.

I guess a follow up question I have is how do locals feel about transplants? I hate to be a hypocrite and move somewhere else because of a major influx of out-of-staters, but we are out of options at this point.


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[Dhiler17]

I grew up in Western Maine and will give you some very short answers here…Feel free to PM me for my phone number and have a more in-depth conversation.

Farmington - centrally located to skiing (45 minutes each to Sugarloaf or Saddleback or Black Mountain), mountain biking, hiking and paddling. I went to college here and it would be my choice if I had to live in Western Maine.

Rangeley (Saddleback) or Carrabassett (Sugarloaf) can feel like a removed outpost. Talk to ticketchecker. But close to skiing and Rangeley would also be awesome in the Summer with a big lake and lots of hiking.

Rumford- avoid. Very provincial paper mill town. Trying to rebuild but its rough.

Bethel - Nice outdoorsy town. Talk to anotherVTskibum. I went to High School there. Amazing hiking right outside of town. Sunday River is a fine ski area but draws the most jongs because it’s closest to the major metros. Close to Mt Washington which will be the only mountain with a Western feel for touring. Talk to cat in January.

Skiing in New England is what it is… I’ll leave it at that. Bring or buy a skinny ski that carves. Most days are hardpack groomer days at the resorts. True powder skiing days can be counted in single digits unless you can plan to hit every storm or tour exclusively.

Sounds like we picked a good spot to start our search in. Farmington is definitely the #1 choice but we are willing to live more rural if need be.


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[ex-powderbroker]

Maine is cool, you won’t be the only refugee from out west no matter where you go, either.

One thing when people say things like ‘the winter is long’ in the east, i think it’s because you can’t just drive a bit to see vastly different weather by elevation. when it’s hot humid, you’re stuck. if it’s pissing rain, same thing.

If you like biking enough in the summer and skiing enough when there’s snow it’s probably a great place to live though.

[anotherVTskibum]

Assuming you have school aged kids, I'd start by identifying school districts that you are comfortable with. Skiing and cycling are a far second place in my opinion to access to excellent education.

Picking one piece of the thread to respond to...the SAD44 (Bethel/Woodstock/etc) and RSU10 schools (Rumford/Mexico/etc) are both pretty good at the elementary level, although I may be biased (my wife works in one district and my mother recently retired from the other). RSU10 actually pays better despite being a "less desirable" district.

I'd agree with singlecross's overview about various spots in Maine. From a skiing perspective, I wish we were further north; Sunday River has a good-to-excellent lift system, consistently good groomer skiing, and not a lot of natural snowfall. When we get snow, there's plenty of good tree-skiing to be had, but also plenty of people to go after it. With that said, we're less than an hour from Lewiston-Auburn and barely more than an hour from Portland, and we can be at Logan for an early-morning flight in about 3.5 hours. The mountain-biking here is good and getting better; local lift-served is limited (Mt. Abram is fun but what it is), but public-access trail building continues at a decent pace and there's a fair bit of public land now available thanks to the local nonprofits. The Pinkham Notch parking lot is about 40 minutes away, which—if you have the time to get over there—is probably the most-accessible alpine terrain in New England. Weather tends to be interesting, though.

Farmington or Carrabassett offer more consistent access to good ungroomed skiing (IMO, but also look at annual snow totals), but you're further away from anything most people would call civilization. I've seen good reports about the mountain biking in CV but haven't been up there, and I haven't ridden around Farmington since a high-school MTB race at Titcomb.

They say that the toothbrush was clearly invented in Rangeley because anywhere else and it would've been called a teethbrush, but the recreational opportunities are pretty damn good.

Real estate did get stupid recently (our 2/1, 1k-sq-ft house in Bethel comped out around $225k, which is an impressive increase over the $120k it was worth in 2017), but the silliness seems to be slowing—more listings, and as best I can tell, fewer "must offer cash now to have a chance" situations. It's the wrong thread for that discussion, but I don't expect the supply/demand situation to change much near any of the major recreational draws, so there's that. I expect the current building boom here will probably last another year or two before it slows a bit; right now, it's rather challenging to get contractors lined up unless you have an existing relationship and steady work for them.

I have also lived in Vermont, and FWIW, the skiing is better, but (IME) the cost of living is even worse. Vermont real estate near good skiing was stupid 10 years ago and has gotten worse since.

I should probably get back to work, but feel free to PM me, as well. I'm happy to provide backchannel scuttlebutt about the school districts from a staff-family-member standpoint as well.

[singlecross]

I guess a follow up question I have is how do locals feel about transplants? I hate to be a hypocrite and move somewhere else because of a major influx of out-of-staters, but we are out of options at this point.

Transplant from Idaho will be fine. Most will think of and associate you with a logger or potato farmer… both good. You’ll be way up the acceptance ladder. Near the top depending on how rusty your truck is.

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts transplants would be at the bottom of that acceptance ladder. They whine about the weather, condition of the roads, junk in people’s dooryard, and lack of “services”.

[cat in january]

If you feel good in Idaho you’ll be good in Maine. Some coastal towns remain pretty tribal as lobstering and to a lesser extent clammin and wormin and tippin have kept locals local with good income while the dichotomy of folks from away is more and even here just some places. Farmington is an excellent town and there South to Augusta is nice. Never know who your neighbors are until you know but stay out of the bigger mill towns with old wood tenement houses. Raised my boys, here and prejudice I know but I would put Maine in top 3 for kids particularly if parents have good health insurance which teachers get

[singlecross]

I still have extra 2 tickets to Billy Strings next Sunday August 1 in Gilford, NH. $50 each and I can meet at the show or transfer to your phone.

[Peruvian]

I still have extra 2 tickets to Billy Strings next Sunday August 1 in Gilford, NH. $50 each and I can meet at the show or transfer to your phone.

I’m not sure how you bought them, but my bud sold his spare TTB ticket back to Eventbrite for face value.

[ticketchecker]

I still have extra 2 tickets to Billy Strings next Sunday August 1 in Gilford, NH. $50 each and I can meet at the show or transfer to your phone.

Wish I could, my landlord duties are ruling my week.

That Who Cover he sang second set opener night two at Red Rocks was FKNA


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[ex-powderbroker]

anybody getting any foraging in? went out looking for chanterelles last night and found some lobsters. lots of stuff popping!

[tgapp]

anybody getting any foraging in? went out looking for chanterelles last night and found some lobsters. lots of stuff popping!

I will trade you lobsters for coffee. Honest to god. Damn I'm jealous.

Out west we just get boletes and oysters.

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[ex-powderbroker]

a couple kids walked by the house, apparently this haul was right under my nose. they’re off to harvest my spot tomorrow, hope they save me some.

[Vt-Freeheel]

Ya gotta get em before the bugs and snipers.

[ex-powderbroker]

they inspired me

[m2711c]

pour some vodka in that jar and let it sit fer a spell....

[retirwntm]

I could just pour that jar right down my throat. Then maybe a vodka chaser.


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[Vt-Freeheel]

This^^

[singlecross]

Mrs single and I are headed over to NH for the weekend Billy Strings shows. Camping in the truck in Meredith. Any mags in the Winnipesaukee area wanna recommend a good Sunday hangout for the day before the second show?