California to Colorado to snowboard. best place to live/work/college (Denver: ski resorts, rent)

[donnybrook1]

my girlfriend and i have recently decided that next summer we want to move to colorado somewhere to settle in, get some work going and possibly start school up (we have some credits, but we havnt really started yet) before the winter starts so we can relax and hit up the mountains as much as possible. a few questions i have. how practical is living in an area close enough to work for the mountain, and be able to afford decent rent. also, how likely are we to get jobs on the mountain? is it tough or genereally pretty easy if you get there early enough? Im ex army, have been serving and bartending for the past few years my girlfriend has been serving for close to 8 years now so we wouldnt be passed over because of our qualifications.

ive been snowboarding for close to 13 years now, my girlfriend just started up last season, im currently just getting her used to carving steeps and she even followed me thru a really easy glade path yesterday down here in socal (we had 5 feet this past week, its been the best snow down here in 10 years, the vast differance in this riding compared to usual socal iceboarding is what triggered the conversations, she's decided that powder is so much fun, shes willing to move away from everything just to hunt it for a few years, of course making me close to the happiest man in the world, second to anyone actually living in colorado and enjoying the fluff that i cant wait to live in)

i have a couple friends from high school that are living in the colorado springs/breck areas, and they're telling me how they cant foresee ever wanting to come back here to live, they come and visit and cant wait to get the hell out of here lol. living close to them is a low priority, but living within reasonable distances to at least breck, vail, steamboat, or butte, as well as a good job market (if working for a resort wouldnt be a likely place to get rent revenue from, there is 2 of us and a 1bdr is absolutly fine plus theres a chance we might have a couple people willing to move out there with us, so we would be sharing a cabin home or soemthing like that) and have a decent CC that we can start up at, possibly transfering to WSC or CU (she's headed to be a nurse, im working to an education degree)

born in montana, living there on and off i have no problems with harsh winter weather/driving, altho being a beach girl from birth, she has had 0 experiance, so keeping that in mind, what areas should i be looking into, the only place so far ive been able to find that looks pretty good is gunnison, but my friends couldnt tell me too much about it other then the airport, college and crested butte are all right there.

thanks in advance!

[wanneroo]

I think you'll find it nigh impossible to go to uni full time and also live in a ski resort and work there. It will logistically be one or the other. There are few college and university opportunities in the mountains. There is the school in Gunnison which I remember looking at years ago and passed on for several reasons. There is also Colorado Mountain College which has small community colleges in different towns which may have transferable courses to a big 4 year school.

Most colleges and schools are on the front range in Colorado from Ft. Collins to Pueblo and while you could commute up on the weekend to ski, I think you'll find actually living up in the mountains near a decent resort and working there and then trying to commute down to school several times a week wouldn't work and financially would be tough, not to mention time consuming. One thing with Colorado is on the road map everything looks easy to get to with straight roads, but the reality is there is a lot of wicked weather, elevation changes and traffic problems.

[SheridanL]

Gunnison, although it has Western State College, wouldn't be my first pick for a person who is used to the beach!! It is one heck of a cold place!!
Frisco, near Dillon and Breck, gets pretty darn cold too but, is a great town close to ski areas.
One area to consider because of Red Rocks Community College, would be Golden, Evergreen, Morrison. It isn't too terribly far from skiiing and Denver.
Have fun!!

[CosmicWizard]

Consider Grand Junction on the western slope. Mesa State (http://www.mesastate.edu/ - broken link) is located in town. You can do your snowboarding at Powderhorn about 45 minutes from town ( let me warn you in advance that Powderhorn is NOT like Vail, Aspen, Telluride, or any of the big name Colorado ski resorts. It's small, but there is lots of good powder! ). Keep in mind that Grand Junction does NOT have the typical alpine scenery that you are probably associating with Colorado. Grand Junction sits at an elevation of only 4600 ft. It's is primarily desert, red rock, canyon country...but the snow country is easily accessible without the traffic hassles of the front range. Except for the mountain environment, this is a place that could meet your needs...you can go back to school, work to support yourselves, AND have snowboarding less than an hour away.