Spokane - living there?

[SkiLyft]

Local shop blowing out skis. Micah is the man and is a magician with boot work.




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[slcdawg]

Bump. Daughter is considering Gonzaga, it checks quite a few boxes (academics, outdoor rec, and college sports). Cons are its smaller than she would prefer and she's not Catholic (don't think this is a big deal). Anyone got kids at Gonzaga who can provide some pros/cons? She's a Colorado kid and is used to going on a hike or mtn bike ride after school from the house. From this thread, sounds like decent mtn biking in town and "mediocre" skiing an hour away. Do you need a car? Has Spokane changed much in the 6 years since this thread started?

[dan_pdx]

If you want to take advantage of outdoor stuff, I would say you need a car. There's decent hiking 15 minutes away in a few different directions, but nothing that compares to what she's probably used to. I'm not sure about the mountain biking in town, I'm not aware of any, but I'm more of a roadie/gravel rider. There are pretty dope gravel rides on the edge of the Palouse that I can ride out my back door, but I'm 4 miles from Gonzaga up a steep hill, you would need to be dedicated to hit those rides from campus without a car.

I can't speak too much to Gonzaga itself, but we do have a friend who works there, and FWIW I have the sense it's pretty white and full of upper / upper middle class kids. On the plus side, I definitely don't have the impression that Catholicism is a big deal on campus. Our friend that works there is definitely not a churchgoer

[house]

The thing to keep in mind regarding it being a Catholic school is the required religion classes. Those are credits you pay for that could be used for other interests at a non-religion affiliated school.

I took some interesting religion classes at Gonzaga a long time ago, but maybe it would have been time better spent learning something more useful?

Anyway, if you do end up applying to Gonzaga, let me know if you’d like an application fee waiver.
https://www.zagsonline.org/s/829/17-...d=602&cid=1369


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[slcdawg]

Thanks for the info. How do you like Spokane?

[slcdawg]

Thank you for the offer - but she already applied.

Anyway, if you do end up applying to Gonzaga, let me know if you’d like an application fee waiver.
https://www.zagsonline.org/s/829/17-...d=602&cid=1369


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[SkiLyft]

Thanks for the info. How do you like Spokane?

Public transit is shit here and doesn’t connect with the mountains — imo car is mandatory!

Been here since 2018 and think it’s a pretty great compromise of all things.

- The best resource here is Biking and there are numerous trail systems within 15 minutes of Gonzaga! From XC rides at riverview to full on slabs in Beacon that resemble Squamish!

- Skiing doesn’t compare with CO but there are enough local hills to keep crowds at a minimum that said the hills located north of the boarder in Canada are the true gem!

- housing is reasonable

- homeless is the biggest eye sore but most of them were my patients at one point and they are harmless!

Much more to dive into but Spokane is really coming into its own. Killer beer. Great food.


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[romeo tango]

something else to consider is that Spokane and NEWA in general are politically conservative,
very conservative compared to say, Boulder or Eugene ....

there is a growing liberal subculture and it has come a long way from the white supremacist days,
just my 2 cents ....
.

[slcdawg]

Good info, thank you. I'm looking forward to checking it out in person.

[slcdawg]

That would be interesting for her to get out of her bubble. Similar to when I moved to SLC in the mid-90s. Wasn't political myself, but eye-opening living in an overwhelmingly red state (from purple).

[californiagrown]

Weather is something that might be tough to get used to. I went to school 1.5hrs south of spokane (but basically same weather) and had a tough time adjusting to the constant gray drearyness and much shorter days than i was used to coming from CA...id imagine the transition will be a little easier coming from CO, but still, SAD is a real thing.

MTB access is really good, and general outdoors is pretty dan good. If you have a car, its really easy to get to remote areas and leverage all that access.

I never understood the draw of gonazaga, unless basketball is 100% your thing. Shitty weather, small religous school, super duper expensive, and in a second tier city (and i dont mean that in an insulting manner, there are some benefits to that).

[californiagrown]

something else to consider is that Spokane and NEWA in general are politically conservative,
very conservative compared to say, Boulder or Eugene ....

there is a growing liberal subculture and it has come a long way from the white supremacist days,
just my 2 cents ....
.

Ha! The KFC in ponderay straight up refused to serve my asian roommate when we stopped in on our way back from Schweitzer in the late oughts. Its gotten quite a bit better since then from what i hear though.

[dan_pdx]

I agree the beer scene here is top notch, but then, of course your daughter won't be drinking any beer because she's underage 🤣

On the political front, we just elected a Democratic mayor, and I believe we have a democratic majority on city council too -- I think I read that this is the first time those two things have happened at the same time. So it's still purple compared to PDX (where I moved from), but is leaning a little more blue than red. Of course, once you leave Spokane, it's dark red.

[SkiLyft]

Interesting to hear about the Grey Californiagrown.

We specifically picked Spo coming from Denver for sun… averages are all over the place we I’d say we get ~180-200 days of sun which isn’t too bad. CDA and Sandpoint get far more clouds due to the lake effect.


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[californiagrown]

Interesting to hear about the Grey Californiagrown.

We specifically picked Spo coming from Denver for sun… averages are all over the place we I’d say we get ~180-200 days of sun which isn’t too bad. CDA and Sandpoint get far more clouds due to the lake effect.


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Pullman and Spokane average 171/172 sunny days a year. Thats about 100 less sunny days than where i came from. The hard part was that those extra 100 days of gray seemed to be concentrated in the winter/spring so it felt extra dreary and depressing.

Where i live int he seattle metro area, averages 164 sunny days/year, so while its better than seattle, Spokane is still awfully gray and dark if youre coming from a sunny area. that is 1000 miles south.

[SkiLyft]

True; I’m from Seattle and Spokane gets WAY more sun. I’m sorry I don’t agree with those averages having been raised on the west side; Spokane gets WAY more sun than an additional 8 days a year


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[californiagrown]

True; I’m from Seattle and Spokane gets WAY more sun. I’m sorry I don’t agree with those averages having been raised on the west side; Spokane gets WAY more sun than an additional 8 days a year


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they might be counting "blue holes" over here on the westside haha. See one of those pop, count it as a sunny day! It also rains on way more days here on the westside so that probably makes it feel much darker and drearier.

Regardless, just my $0.02 that the dark and dreary weather for 6-7months was VERY noticeable to me coming from a place averaging around 270 sunny days per year.

[SkiLyft]

True true; missing 100 days of sun would be a pretty drastic change.


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[slcdawg]

The missus and I lived outside of Portland for 2 years and weather was 100% why we left. Our daughter was born there but too young for any memories. We just did a trip to Michigan for the holidays where it rained every day for a week with very little sun. She was pretty happy to get back to the blue skies at home. I do worry about the weather. For some reason she is drawn to the NW - also applied to OSU and uDub. We're planning a visit to Corvallis in February to give her a true weather sample. Gonzaga kind of came out of the blue and on paper it sounds the best of the 3 weatherwise.

[toast2266]

From the perspective of northwest Montana, Spokane is pretty damn sunny. I've done daytrips over to Spokane to get some sun and early season biking (since they melt out way earlier than we do). It also strikes me as fairly moderate politically. Certainly more conservative than a place like Boulder, but pretty liberal compared to a place like coeur d'alene and the Idaho panhandle.

[Trackhead]

I can't speak too much to Gonzaga itself, but we do have a friend who works there, and FWIW I have the sense it's pretty white and full of upper / upper middle class kids.

How is the color of someone's skin relevant to a review of a campus?

[SkiLyft]

From the perspective of northwest Montana, Spokane is pretty damn sunny. I've done daytrips over to Spokane to get some sun and early season biking (since they melt out way earlier than we do). It also strikes me as fairly moderate politically. Certainly more conservative than a place like Boulder, but pretty liberal compared to a place like coeur d'alene and the Idaho panhandle.

I agree; Spo is pretty dang Purple. Sure it looks really fucking red to Cali or Boulder. But it’s actually pretty dang moderate which we enjoy.


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[dan_pdx]

How is the color of someone's skin relevant to a review of a campus?

Some people like having the opportunity to interact with others who have different backgrounds and perspectives than they do. It's pretty fascinating that in the year of our lord 2024 that's still news to some people, but there it is.

[fatnslow]

Some people like having the opportunity to interact with others who have different backgrounds and perspectives than they do. It's pretty fascinating that in the year of our lord 2024 that's still news to some people, but there it is.

Why are you wasting your time even responding ? If they have to ask....................................

[dan_pdx]

For some reason she is drawn to the NW - also applied to OSU and uDub. We're planning a visit to Corvallis in February to give her a true weather sample. Gonzaga kind of came out of the blue and on paper it sounds the best of the 3 weatherwise.

My nephew is at OSU now. I was born in Oregon, but never spent any time in Corvallis until I went down to visit him last spring. Without getting into what each institution offers, I found Corvallis as a city really uninspiring (my nephew agrees), and would definitely have chosen to spend four years in Spokane or Seattle over Corvallis.