Stronkowski t1_itqyzll wrote on October 25, 2022 at 5:38 PM

Reply to comment by loonarknight in For those who have left Boston, what do you miss the most? by [deleted]

I've had to spend a lot of travel time there for work, including multiple weeks at once.

I find it more boring and soulless. The food is very mediocre. Public transit is worse, and I feel much more forced to drive than I do around Boston. Lots of car parking is a bad thing. The weather is hardly ever "good", it just avoids most "bad".

I disagree that western hiking is better; the views during it certainly are, but the hikes themselves favor switchbacks far too much. They're just too easy.

Also nothing has AC. That's fine for the majority of the year, but it means when there is that one week heatwave you can't even comfortably sit in a brewery.

BobDurham1 t1_itr87ra wrote on October 25, 2022 at 6:37 PM

Mount Rainier is one of if not the most challenging mountain in continental NA. There are many things you can say about PNW but you can’t say it doesn’t have some of the best hiking in the United States

tacknosaddle t1_itr25ie wrote on October 25, 2022 at 5:58 PM

>the hikes themselves favor switchbacks far too much. They're just too easy.

A friend who has hiked/camped extensively said something similar. Trails in the east like the AT or Long Trail in VT tend to just scramble straight up and over things while out west you'll do a lot more elevation gain, but the switchbacks mean that you're almost never on a steep incline for long.

AlcoholicZebra54 t1_itsqesw wrote on October 26, 2022 at 12:50 AM

The Summer is absolutely gorgeous, way better than the East Coast. The Winter on the other hand is terrible for anyone that likes the sun. The hiking and outdoors stuff is incredible. Plenty of stuff has AC. Your other points are valid.

SLUer12 t1_ituwr8i wrote on October 26, 2022 at 2:21 PM

What are you talking about? The weather in the summer is insanely good. Also the views are what makes a hike a hike. Otherwise you can go hike on your treadmill at that steep incline you want.

And all the breweries I’ve been in Seattle have air conditioning.

Stronkowski t1_itv5g6k wrote on October 26, 2022 at 3:20 PM

No, the views are a small part of it. Otherwise you should just drive up a mountain road and take a photo instead of hiking it. A good hike is supposed to be tiring.

And not a single brewery I've been to in the area has had air conditioning. This doesn't matter for 99% of the year, but when you get a week like happened at the end of this past July every sucks because the city hvac is built assuming that's not going to happen since it's almost always 70 degrees instead.

SLUer12 t1_itwr2z5 wrote on October 26, 2022 at 9:30 PM

Maybe I’m just in less shape than you. But plenty of tough trails out here on the west. It’s comical actually that you think the Boston area within a 3 hour drive have anything remotely close to the kind of hikes you can get in Seattle with Mount Rainier, Mount Baker in the vicinity.

Stronkowski t1_itwwjfm wrote on October 26, 2022 at 10:07 PM

You probably are, as I've done multiple hikes in the hundreds of miles distance (one of which was even out there in the Rockies). If you were a more experienced hiker than I am I doubt you'd have mentioned that possibility.

I've yet to do Rainier, but if it's actually got any grade or technicality it'll be the first for me out of hundreds of miles worth of trail out there. Being high elevation doesn't make a hike difficult, and switchbacks are boring AF. They're the treadmills of hiking.

Meanwhile, yes the Green and White Mountains have been tougher than anything I've found out west yet. Going straight up rocky terrain instead of winding around on a horse graded trail is a huge difference.