Moving to Idaho, need help choosing the right location (Boise: new home, to buy)

[ByJoveJam]

If you're looking in my neck of the woods, I'd say Wallace, Athol, or even Rathdrum. CD'A and Hayden are being drastically developed, you have sub divisions everywhere. Not a lot of acreage to go around. These are all northern towns, though, I don't have a lot of info on anything south of Harrison, and I couldn't recommend Lewiston on account of the odd smell.

[nowhereman427]

How abouty Arco or Idaho city?

[NW Crow]

Arco and Idaho City are both isolated and tiny and therefore completely inappropriate for the OP, if that was being asked. Even if Idaho City was marginally tolerable commute to work, it fails the OP for warm too.

For you? I doubt you'd chose Idaho City or Arco given their time to big box stores (probably close to an hour from Idaho City, that or more from Arco) and almost anything above a gas station / convenience store. Unlikely choices by most other factors besides low population. Idaho City is at 450 and falling slowly. Arco at 750 and was falling pretty sharply. Idaho City has trees but more winter than you probably want and little in the way of standard, newer housing. Many of the houses are also right on top of each other as well. Arco, not much snow, or trees or much of anything new in the last 30-50 years.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by NW Crow

Arco and Idaho City are both isolated and tiny and therefore completely inappropriate for the OP, if that was being asked. Even if Idaho City was marginally tolerable commute to work, it fails the OP for warm too.

For you? I doubt you'd chose Idaho City or Arco given their time to big box stores (probably close to an hour from Idaho City, that or more from Arco) and almost anything above a gas station / convenience store. Unlikely choices by most other factors besides low population. Idaho City is at 450 and falling slowly. Arco at 750 and was falling pretty sharply. Idaho City has trees but more winter than you probably want and little in the way of standard, newer housing. Many of the houses are also right on top of each other as well. Arco, not much snow, or trees or much of anything new in the last 30-50 years.

Yup.
Idaho City's heyday came over 140 years ago, and was over before the 20th century began. There has been very little new construction there since that has been much more than a basic log cabin.

It's one of those ghost towns that burned so many times that the major buildings were finally made of local brick to make them fireproof. That happened just before the gold mines in Idaho City played out.

This region is full of similar ghost towns like it. Virginia City, Idaho, Virginia City, Montana, Bannack, Montana, Bergdorf, Idaho; all of them have a few brick buildings left, but they're all rotting away on the inside of them.

Some of them actually had then-modern water and sewer lines laid, and local power plants, because all were quite wealthy in their heyday. None of them was ever completely abandoned; there are always some folks who will move into an empty building no one wants and squats. Hermits and malcontents who don't want to live close to civilization, mostly.

Some were abandoned by the 1900s, while others managed to survive into the 1920s-30s as actual communities.

Arco is almost as old, but it came because there was a need for a town there due to the growth of the surrounding area and because it was a good place for a rural railhead's end of the line.

Back when a trip to larger Idaho Falls or Blackfoot was a half-day's journey by rail or a full day's journey by horse and wagon, Arco grew because it could supply the local needs for something more than just fuel, food, or a night's rest.
But once the highway was paved, and the trip turned into only an hour, Arco withered down to what it is now.

As a county seat, Arco won't ever grow much, but won't become a ghost town either. Since it's a highway junction town, it still has a reason to survive but not enough reason to grow.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by NW Crow

Arco and Idaho City are both isolated and tiny and therefore completely inappropriate for the OP, if that was being asked. Even if Idaho City was marginally tolerable commute to work, it fails the OP for warm too.

For you? I doubt you'd chose Idaho City or Arco given their time to big box stores (probably close to an hour from Idaho City, that or more from Arco) and almost anything above a gas station / convenience store. Unlikely choices by most other factors besides low population. Idaho City is at 450 and falling slowly. Arco at 750 and was falling pretty sharply. Idaho City has trees but more winter than you probably want and little in the way of standard, newer housing. Many of the houses are also right on top of each other as well. Arco, not much snow, or trees or much of anything new in the last 30-50 years.

Definitely need colder weather at least nothing that goes over 80 is preferable if possible. Am used to 55-65 degrees. Born and raised

[NW Crow]

Every place in US not within a short distance of the west coast will get to at least low 80s some in summer, unless at high altitude, to my knowledge. How high may vary by state / location. In Colorado it would take 9,000 feet or more. In Idaho it would probably take being in the icebox of Stanley to nearly completely avoid occurrences of 80s.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by NW Crow

Every place in US not within a short distance of the west coast will get to at least low 80s some in summer, unless at high altitude to my knowledge. How high may vary by state.

Well at least I will have an air conditioner inside house by that time so I can keep it down below 70.

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by nowhereman427

Definitely need colder weather at least nothing that goes over 80 is preferable if possible. Am used to 55-65 degrees. Born and raised

That pretty much describes the entire SE Corridor. The farther north one goes in it, the colder it gets. The terrain begins at the natural border of the Malad Pass and rises upward all the way to Yellowstone, lying just outside our NE border. Almost every mile is an increase in elevation.

Out here, elevation makes a huge difference in seasonal temperatures. The entire corridor lies on the western slope of the Northern Rocky Mountain range.

Island Park is well over 1,000 feet higher than the rest of the Upper Snake River Valley because it's a caldera; the remnant of a huge volcano that blew off it's entire top. If you like cold, that's the place for you, for sure.

The Ashton Grade, a stretch of US 20, climbs up the side of that ancient volcano. The grade is notoriously steep and treacherous, as it's only about 5 miles long, but always shaded in the winter. The saving grace is 20 is a major supply route northward, so the grade always gets the snowplows first and is continually sanded.

Winter starts there in late September and can last to the end of June. 80º is hot for the IP.

It's the coldest Idaho place I've ever been in too.

It hit 50º below zero there on New Year's Day, back around 1985, and was probably colder- the thermometer bottomed out at -50 and was pegged all day in full sunshine. That was at the Wild Rose Ranch on the shores of Henry's Lake.

IP hasn't been that cold for quite a long time now; the 80s was a cold decade.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by banjomike

zer
That pretty much describes the entire SE Corridor. The farther north one goes in it, the colder it gets. The terrain begins at the natural border of the Malad Pass and rises upward all the way to Yellowstone, lying just outside our NE border. Almost every mile is an increase in elevation.

Out here, elevation makes a huge difference in seasonal temperatures. The entire corridor lies on the western slope of the Northern Rocky Mountain range.

Island Park is well over 1,000 feet higher than the rest of the Upper Snake River Valley because it's a caldera; the remnant of a huge volcano that blew off it's entire top. If you like cold, that's the place for you, for sure.

The Ashton Grade, a stretch of US 20, climbs up the side of that ancient volcano. The grade is notoriously steep and treacherous, as it's only about 5 miles long, but always shaded in the winter. The saving grace is 20 is a major supply route northward, so the grade always gets the snowplows first and is continually sanded.

Winter starts there in late September and can last to the end of June. 80º is hot for the IP.

It's the coldest Idaho place I've ever been in too.

It hit 50º below zero there on New Year's Day, back around 1985, and was probably colder- the thermometer bottomed out at -50 and was pegged all day in full sunshine. That was at the Wild Rose Ranch on the shores of Henry's Lake.

IP hasn't been that cold for quite a long time now; the 80s was a cold decade.

What location are you refering to?

[banjomike]

Originally Posted by nowhereman427

What location are you refering to?

The Southeast corridor is a string of cities that stretches from Utah to Montana along Idaho's eastern boundary.

It begins at the Malad/Bear Lake area, then proceeds to Pocatello, Blackfoot, Idaho Falls, Rexburg, an all the small towns in between, and ends at the Island Park caldera at the Idaho/Montana/Wyoming border at the north.

The corridor is the second-most populated region of the state, following Boise and the Treasure Valley. It's a much larger territory than the TV, so the population is less condensed.

If you study an Idaho state map, you will find the entire center from north to south is lightly populated. All our population here lies along our edges, not in our center.

Essentially, we all live where Idaho is habitable. Our center is mostly too mountainous to ever be inhabited, and where there are no mountains, there are inhabitable lava flows.

The Northern Idaho Panhandle is the remnant strip of territory that was also cut off from Montana and Washington by mountains. NID is cut off from the rest of Idaho by other mountains.