Pros/ Cons of the area? I've read the Denver area threads but they seem heavily centered on kiddos (which I don't have).
Personal likes: juice bars, bike lanes, public transit, sunshine, green space
Personal dislikes: homogeneous culture, continental snowpack
Discuss? Let's say for the purposes of discussion that it is a positive career move and we are comparing to the SLC area.
The culture is homogeneous and the snowback continental.
Public transport yes, for the most part.
Bike lanes? Too small of a city to care
Sunshine: as much as you can handle
Green space is more Tan space, but easy access from Golden.
This thread would get a lot more attention in the padded room. You should ask a mod to move it for you.
I live in Boulder, am building a house in Golden and have lived in SLC.
Skiing and outdoor access with less crowds will be much better in SLC. CO has less snow and more avalanches. If you want to buy a house in Golden, you are going to spend more than $500k and rising for anything decent- that may seem cheap for you coming from the PNW. Comparable homes in SLC can be had for less than $300k. If you want to ski on weekends coming from the front range, you are going to sit in traffic for so long that it makes you so angry that you contemplate giving up the sport entirely.
Denver metro and SLC are both a very homogeneous culture compared to Seattle. There are basically only white people and hispanic people, except for a small community of Pacific Islanders in SLC that the Mormons brought over and the disenfranchised African American community in Aurora and North Denver. The Asian influence you are used to in the PNW doesn't exist in CO or SLC. Denver is a much more open and accepting culture than SLC, which is heavily handicapped by the Mormon church. SLC is very strange from a social standpoint. You'll be ostracized by most social groups for not being married with kids as early as age 23.
Park City is by far the best option for living near SLC- you'd have ski resorts and good mountain biking in your home town. There is nothing comparable to Park City in Denver.
Golden has some solid climbing, biking, hiking and kayaking, but it is nothing that LCC, BCC or other areas of SLC don't have. Golden is also next to Morrison, which is where Red Rocks is. Golden has a kinda cool downtown area with overpriced food and a couple breweries. In CO you'll have legal weed, which can be pretty fun.
Sunshine is comparable in UT and CO. Air quality is generally much better in CO compared to SLC. Golden is cool in that it has a lot of open space- North Table Mountain, South Table Mountain and Green Mountain to the east, the rest of the Front Range to the west. Again, nothing that Park City or other parts of SLC don't have.
Public transit in CO is a joke. There is now light rail from Golden to Denver. It takes an hour to get between the two on the train. You could drive it in 20 minutes. SLC has better public transit due to the Olympics.
If I had to chose, I'd probably choose Golden over SLC, particularly if you are working in Golden and can afford to live there. I really do miss skiing powder though.
ohhh interesting. hope it works out for you guys!
x2 what Kevo provided. However I would also add, that if you go south to Lakewood / Morrison you can find a little more space and less expensive housing with the same access to open space, I70, etc... that you would want for Skiing, Biking, etc...
Prices around Denver do continue to rise watching housing in my enclave climb over the past 2-3 years almost 50%. Rent is also crazy compared to SLC.
Yup, Golden real estate is out of control. Lakewood or Wheatridge are right next to Golden and a little bit cheaper. Light rail is 38 minutes from Golden to Union Station, not an hour. Used to take that route daily.
If you do go to SLC the general rule of thumb is that the further away you get from the city, the more hardcore the mormons are. As in, you'll constantly be pestered to convert, and until you do you'll be shunned by the community. Season passes cost a shitload more money too, and it's usually only for a single resort. Colorado has the best deals on multiple resort season passes by far (but this is also part of the reason the resorts are so crowded).
Well thanks for all the info. As I sort of suspected, SLC would win easily in my book. But, as it turns out, a cool job that was worth the move brought me to the Denver area. I'm working in Lakewood and (for now at least) living in Golden.
Could use a friendly face and there's no such thing as too many adventure buddies, so if you happen to live in the area and would like to show a newbie around, I'd love to hear from you!
So far I'm liking things okay... Do folks do a ski lease in winter or are you close enough to WinterPark or Eldora to just head up there?
Ski lease. If you're a weekend warrior and want to be skiing, it's the only way to go, imo.
Then the question is where?Quote:
Originally Posted by Danno
Attachment 181943
Owen in the blue was born and raised in Aspen and drives up most weekends from Golden.
Probably a little cost prohibitive for now.
I'd at least pick up a Mountain Collective pass for road trips and avoiding the big weekend Summit County chaos..
We somehow found pow this weekend.
Attachment 181946
Glad to hear you made the move to CO and hope you like it here!Quote:
Originally Posted by jesski
I'm moving to Golden from Boulder later this summer- house will be finished in July hopefully. I'm definitely down for a drink, road bike ride, hike, climb etc! I need to check out Golden some more before I move there.
Nobody will agree on that, but I've made my choice (partly because I have a kid, which isn't a concern for the op).Quote:
Originally Posted by Shredhead
Yo Shred, the humble brag is getting old. We get it. You're OG Aspen, you park the sleds backside with the rest of the cool guys. Skiing the RFV is superior to the I-70 trash heaps. You jet in for the weekends to clink glasses with the pretty people.
I'm jealous, sounds like a good life. Seriously. I know you are good peeps. Just calling it how I see it.
I'm in Golden and always up for riding, skiing, beers. Hit me up peoples!
Sorry, just had an awesome weekend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Foggy_Goggles
I'll tone it down for a few months.
Been living in "Golden" for a few years now, right by Green Mountain and the RRCC light rail stop, not really proper Golden but our address is Golden and that adds about $50k to the value of our house. I'm also up for riding skiing and beers, and also am astounded by the growth in this area in the last decade. I ski Copper mostly and am a total hack mountain biker but trying to get up more often. Never lived anywhere else (Denver area) so I have nothing to compare to besides the 'good old days'. Last time i was in SLC it was a dense smog, kind of a turnoff.
u must have fucked up this winter if you didn't ski shit loads of powder in colorado this winterQuote:
Originally Posted by Kevo
Quote:
Originally Posted by jesski
Overall Golden is not a bad place to live. I don't get over to that part of town that often but I'm not a huge fan of what I have seen in Golden. I would rather live in Boulder 20 minutes away, or maybe even some of the nicer parts of Littleton / Lakewood. SLC imho would be a much worse place to live. The mormon culture there sucks ass. Denver is a much more vibrant city than SLC. Plus the air quality there in the winter is atrocious. Denver wins hands down in my book.
edit to add: congrats on moving out here. Summer in Colorado is very nice. Lakewood is a nice place depending on where you are, but also has some kinda ghetto parts.
also Washington Park on a warm spring day is all time. Check it out sometime.
5 hours from Denver to Durango right?Quote:
Originally Posted by WTF is dat
jesski - hit me up, you have my #
Cool to see all the Golden peeps in here. I'm pretty much at Apex Park.
I didn't realize you moved down here. Sweet. I'm pretty much at Chimney. Beers and rides ahead.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lindahl
That right there is some funny shit.Quote:
Originally Posted by concretejungle
It is 20 minutes. If you're at cannonball and going no further than table mesa.
Bump - it looks like we may be making the move to the Denver area, looking at Golden or the west side somewhere. Different parameters than the OP - mainly in that we have elementary age kids and are used to great schools. We have good friends who live near South Table, so we'd like to be near them, but not sure we want to spend that kind of money. We would like to have some money left over to go skiing.
Mainly when we buy we'll be thinking schools and it doesn't seem too straight forward. The elementary vs middle school vs high school district lines seem all messed up. Or at least hard to decide where to live for making sure we're in a good area for all 3 levels. Then there's the choice schools? Any advice from parents who know the area would be appreciated.
living in golden...
climate-
DRY! Sunny :) COLD AF IN WINTER (as expected).
since it's usually dry here, it's "golden" (brown), not green. In the spring and summer, though, the hills come alive and it's beautiful and lush. the fall in CO is gorgeous with the leaves and mountains, but don't expect a ton of greenery in golden since it's still prairie land til you get over the foothills.
outdoors-
Lots of nearby mountains for hiking and mtn biking. I can be on a trailhead about 15 minutes or less from my house. also has a nice river running through downtown that people either float in the summer or playboat. There are a few bike lines. You can see people biking to work daily on their bikes, very active biking (road and mt) community here in CO. Skiing is relatively close... You have all the big resorts in summit county about 1-2hours away depending on traffic (which can REALLY suck btw), or you can choose to skin it and go somewhere up there which is also very popular but be careful with the avalanches. Climbing is super close if you do that as well. Golden has a huge indoor climbing gym called Earth Treks. Running community is fairly big here I think. I would just recommend visiting...I could go on about this.
social/nightlife/dining-
golden is quiet at night. The Colorado school of mines students here add a bit to the scene but it's nothing like Boulder as you probably know. Boulder is only a half hour away though so you could go there, or Denver is the same distance.
Golden doesnt have any juice bars, the new one just closed, but I'm sure there are some if you look around more. 4 breweries here that I can count off the top of my head, plenty more in surrounding area.
diversity-
this is a touchy issue so I won't go into it too much, but I find the average person here in golden to be: in their 20's-30's, white, male, outdoorsy, and has a beard. Same in Denver. This is just my general impression.
sorry this post was so long, first time on this tgr forum and had a lot to say obviously :) good luck!
Bump to say that after lots of issues with the last house I'm under contract for another house in Golden with a 10/24 closing date. Looking forward to finally meeting you guys!
Sorry, I know nothing of schools that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by hikesalot