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. They are a serious concern and require vigilance, howevere one of the houses we like was built in the first half of the 1900's, so the fires obviously don't destroy everything. Maybe it's also a touch of the locals trying to scare away newcomers.
Ps - if I am sure to check that the well allows for horses, I would be legal, right? I don't care about buying hay. What is it, 1k per year? More?
True enough. Fires don't destroy everything, just everything in their path. We're not trying to scare you, just trying to make you aware that there is some risk involved.
Yes, legal if you are zoned for horses (ag) and have a well that permits watering (domestic, augmented or actual water rights). Also, it's legal for horses to drink out of any open water course. I have a friend on a small acreage and he has a household well so legally, he can't water his horses. But, he has an irrigation ditch running through his property so the horses are allowed to drink from it. The ditches are on from spring through fall (assuming there is irrigation water) and in the winter, he just poaches (illegally uses water from the house).
Depends on the crop and the drought. I've paid as little as $2 per bale but that was picking it up in the field following the baler. In a drought year, I've heard of people paying as much as $12. Yikes.
I grew up in Chicago so thanks for that asswhoopin on Sunday. I didn't think Green Bay would pull it off, Ooff da!
285 is a two lane divided hwy between conifer and Breck (55/65mph). It's an epically beautiful drive, but the weather can hit hard between Kenosha Pass and Fairplay. The wind comes up and blows snow over the highway. Cars and trucks pack it down into ice. So now you're driving on ice (which you can't see because of the blowing snow) and the cross winds are gusting 40-80mph, blowing you into oncoming traffic.
They actually close the 285 in that section every time the ice gets bad. It doesn't even have to be snowing, you just need the winds.
It's not like that all the time, but it is like that often enough to be of significance.
Then there's Hoosier Pass between Alma and Breck. Lots of tight switchbacks and no guard rails in many places - you don't want to go off the edge...
Evergreen/Conifer doesn't get a of snow, but enough that you'll want snow tires, especially if you're going to be driving 285/I-70. Get a second wheelset so you have one set with snow tires and one set with all-seasons/summer tires. Using snow's year round will wreck the tires.
Evergreen & Conifier and the foothills in general seem to be at a greater fire risk than the ski towns and/or higher elevations, which stay cooler in summer.
The wife and I grew up in the tropics/subtropics and we love the mountains. Having a healthy budget and a health body help enormously when it comes to mountain living.
Maybe it's also a touch of the locals trying to scare away newcomers. I get it.
Does Costco sell snow tires? Do you change them with the seasons? Online it says evergreen gets half the snow of breck. I mean, it really doesn't look like THAT much snow at all as I watch the weather channel app on my phone.
Actually the locals who currently own in the foothills really want you to buy the foothills homes. Otherwise they can't sell their homes as there isn't much demand. They will downplay the fire danger as much as possible. In listening to the talking heads trying to figure out why we have such bad fires now whereas we historically didn't, they give a couple of reasons. One is that we are having a prolonged drought that wasn't occurring during the previous century so the forests are much drier. Another is that we have alot of beetle killed trees in the forest which provides alot more dry fuel than we've previously had.
My own observation when camping is that an unprecedented number of people are leaving campfires still smoldering. When I was a kid, girl scouts trained you to put out your fire really well. Basically they said to drown it. In the last few years whenever we've gone boondocking (camping in the national forest at free sites) it is not uncommon to pull into a site that has a fire smoldering. Countless times while out hiking we've run across an empty site with smoke still coming out of it and we have to hike back to our site for a couple of gallons of water, hike back to the fire site and drown it out. No matter how tired we are we never leave one once we've seen it. I've gotten to worrying that some time we might get trapped behind a fire line because the forest service roads are sort of convoluted and don't offer many paths down. Now Colorado is going to become a destination for potheads that might decide camping and smoking are a good combo. I don't even want to think about how good they will be at putting out their campfires while in a drug induced haze.
I think the forum has done a good job giving you the low down on the area. I think your asking good questions and I think your getting good answers. I try to provide answers that are not motivated by self interests but are based on the level of truth I would want if I were asking. In fact it is not in our self interest to discourage you. My own family owns a lot in the mountains bought during the 70's dream time of having a vacation/retirement home in the mountains. We are supposed to inherit it. We have said we will never build there and to sell it. No takers over the last decade or so and the area has a new rec center which I would think would be a draw. That aside it is still in our best interest to encourage you. The more out of towners that buy foothills homes, the more buyers it frees up to move to the flatlands and increases our own home's value due to increased demand.
Yes, Costco sells snow tires. Yes you change them seasonally. Snow comes and goes. Sometimes it is bad, sometimes it is not. Right now it is not.
I still think you might want to find a way to track your data usage where you live now and see how long it takes you to rack up 25GB. Right now you can completely ignore your data usage. But if you end up with a satellite connection your daily life will include:
How much room do I have before I hit the cap?
How much data will this content actually take up?
What if I'm wrong?
How much does it cost if I go over?
Wait, what if this is taking up a lot more data then I thought?
How much more data will I need this month?
No, seriously, what if I confused things and watching this video uses up my entire allotment?
You may not care about any of the concerns presented to you regarding foothills living. But since you mentioned that you already bought an investment home before a crash and don't want to make the same mistake you might want to think about the things that would drive you out of the mountain house and whether you can find anyone else that doesn't care about them also.
Regarding the hay situation. It can get really bad here because when there is no hay there is no market to sell a horse. Most people have to send them to slaughter and it breaks their hearts. Some of the more heartless just let them starve or set them loose to starve. The more creative drop them off in someone else's field.
Not saying you shouldn't have horses if you want them. If they are well kept you might even end up with a herd. A quote from one of the articles on the hay shortage "It was bad last year also. I have a friend that lives down in SE Colorado, and when she went to bed one night, she had 3 horses in her pasture. When she woke up the next morning she had 7. Needless to say, now she locks her pasture."
Happy New Year! Thank you to everyone that has spent their time posting on this forum! Yes, the Pack pulled it out last Sunday, somehow. We are, of course, still avid Packer fan, and there were many a sore throat that day rooting on our team. This is all so much to think about!
Obviously, the more I research fires, the greater the concern they become. However, it is not like it is even safe to move to outskirts of Denver or another metro area. I saw in the Waldo Canyon fire outside Colorado Springs, there were entire suburban neighborhoods set ablaze. So I guess, fires are going to be a big concern for anyone considering moving to Colorado, or west in general? I don't like to make decisions based on fear, but it is something to be prepared for, and mentally, if you live there, you have to know that you could literally lose all your belongings in a fire.
So, I think I have the criteria for home shopping down, does anyone have a preference for areas in the foothills? Any areas better for kids? I got some good information on kids athletics, especially baseball and tackle football for boys. Are the leagues and parents very competitive? In Florida, some of the parents get so into their kids sports, they stop doing their own activities and literally live through their kids as if every one of them is going to be that 1 in 10 million kid who is going to go to the majors/NFL. Can't kids just play on teams for fun anymore?
The schools all look great and that is a plus. I like that they are small. I went to a smallish high school in Wisconsin and while teens always suffer from boredom in small towns (must be those hormones), the benefit was that I could pretty much play on any sports team, or be in school plays/band, if I wanted to. I would like my kids to have the same opportunity. At our high school here, there are upwards of 400 boys that try out for the varsity teams each season. No wonder the parents are so obsessed. Everyone wants their kids to have that experience, but they set them up for disappointment by living in a crowded, highly desirable, climate/location so they can live the easy life.
I think that if I really instill a love for the outdoors and more simple values, I can help keep that teenage boredom at least a little at bay. I also battle it by keeping my kids really busy. We emphasize the importance of school work, they all take piano lessons and we try to keep tv and video games to a minimum.
Thanks again all!
Go Pack! (Should be a tough one against San Fran Sunday so they'd better not have all the turnovers)
Jen
... I don't like to make decisions based on fear, but it is something to be prepared for...
Good for you-I am of a like mind. You can't go through life worrying about every damn thing. Plenty of people live in the foothills and manage the risk. Just don't go into it blindly. Seems to me that there are a lot of analogies between buying in hazard zones in Florida and Colorado. You have seen what is happening since FEMAs Oct 1 Floodegeddon Day roll out. Properties have become unmarketable because the hazard insurance is unaffordable. This seems to be happening in fire zones in the west although not as dramatically. Yet. I think you have more to fear from the insurance companies than you do from a fire. After all, you can always flee a fire.
When I was visiting my brother in July (Evergreen), a momma lion walked through his backyard with her cubs. Later, on the way to HomeDepot, I had to wait for a small herd of elk to mosey off the road before I could continue. There are nice things about living there. Like most places, you just have to learn to take the bad with the good.
I have to chime in here, I think a lot of folks are exaggerating issues with living in Evergreen, not sure if they have even lived in the area. Both my husband and I work from home offices, share an internet line with 3 kids with devices and are fine using Century Linx, no speed or download issues. Is it as fast as when we lived down the hill, no but it's not slowing down our work productivity.
We do not have snow tires but all weather tires on our SUV'S and again, no issues.
Our home owner's insurance has not increased nor have we been asked to do fire mitigation. We did make sure that we bought a house that wasn't completely surrounded by trees. It actually works to our advantage as we have the most fabulous views and a flat 3 acre lot for our kids to jump on their trampoline or play ball (we live at 8200 feet)
Drove from Breck to our home in S. Evergreen on New Year's Day, while it was snowing and it took 90 minutes, there's never any traffic except occassionally during the summer as there are a lot of campers/trailers that can slow things down. My sister took a shuttle to the airport from the same area it took her 3.5 hours.
We have a 2600 square foot house and our highest gas bill averages $180 during winter months (we are on natural gas though).
We couldn't be happier living here. Best decision that we have ever made. Our kids are extremely happy. We love the small community feel. My husband travels a lot so he commutes to DIA and has no issues.
Let me know if you have any questions from someone who actually lives here
I have to chime in here, I think a lot of folks are exaggerating issues with living in Evergreen, not sure if they have even lived in the area. Both my husband and I work from home offices, share an internet line with 3 kids with devices and are fine using Century Linx, no speed or download issues. Is it as fast as when we lived down the hill, no but it's not slowing down our work productivity.
We do not have snow tires but all weather tires on our SUV'S and again, no issues.
Our home owner's insurance has not increased nor have we been asked to do fire mitigation. We did make sure that we bought a house that wasn't completely surrounded by trees. It actually works to our advantage as we have the most fabulous views and a flat 3 acre lot for our kids to jump on their trampoline or play ball (we live at 8200 feet)
Drove from Breck to our home in S. Evergreen on New Year's Day, while it was snowing and it took 90 minutes, there's never any traffic except occassionally during the summer as there are a lot of campers/trailers that can slow things down. My sister took a shuttle to the airport from the same area it took her 3.5 hours.
We have a 2600 square foot house and our highest gas bill averages $180 during winter months (we are on natural gas though).
We couldn't be happier living here. Best decision that we have ever made. Our kids are extremely happy. We love the small community feel. My husband travels a lot so he commutes to DIA and has no issues.
Let me know if you have any questions from someone who actually lives here
So you either consciously made good decisions when you bought, or you got lucky. The people who have responded to the OP have been trying to steer them in the direction of making the same good decisions:
1) You are not on a north facing hillside that gets no sun.
2) You are not surrounded by trees.
3) You have natural gas instead of propane.
4) You have high speed internet.
5) You work from home, so you can get by with all season tires on your FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE vehicles. If you HAD to get to work on those days when three feet of snow falls, you would not be running all season tires.
These are all things that you are taking for granted exist everywhere in the foothills. We are trying to give the OP a heads up that all of these do NOT exist everywhere, and in fact, I know people in the foothills living on north facing slopes, surrounded by trees, on propane, who are stuck using satellite internet, and who have to get to work every day. They are not very happy. On the other hand, their neighbors with the same issues seem to get along just fine.
I don't remember the OP's price range, but I know for a fact that a nice house as you describe on a flat 3 acres with gas and internet is going to run well over $500K.
Hi Jen, looks like you have received some great information on the Conifer/Evergreen area. Regarding your concerns about our temperature in the winter month's. We have a very dry climate, not like Wisconsin's or Florida, for that matter the East Coast and the southern states. It could be say 40ish and you can still take a walk with out a heavy coat, go skiing and not freeze. Also the perks of living up at 8K feet or more is come summer it's great, no need to air conditioning.
And don't forget about our beautiful wildlife.. from your window or deck you can sit and just watch the wildlife outside your home. Imagine your children seeing this right outside the house and not in a zoo.
I love it up here, used to live in Texas and Florida. I miss the ocean but I don't miss the traffic, the crowds or the heat and humidity.
Well, my husband is flying out to Boulder to interview for the open position (exactly the same as his current position) with his company next week. We've been working on this move since June, with various opportunities and lots of curve-balls being thrown at us, so this is probably our big last push, or mentally we may have to shelve it for a little while. He should be a shoo-in for the job, but you know how internal corporate politics work, so who knows? I give it 80%?
I would love to get my family settled out in Evergreen, especially before my oldest is in high school. I think the high schools in Florida are bad news and way too overcrowded. I love the notion of seeing all the wildlife on a regular basis and the beauty of the mountains.
Question: When you live in S. Evergreen or Conifer, is it faster to take the 285 or 70 to Breck? Which way do people prefer?
Hoping to send my husband in some houses again while he is out next week, so anyone with a house that satisfies all the criteria set forth on this board should list now! LOL!
I hope we get good news next week!!! Our house is back on the market here in Windermere, and we are hoping this time it goes our way.
Thank you!
Jen
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