Moving to Utah!
- Thread starter Joelzy
- Start date
sn_85
Senior Member
Congrats on the move to SLC. I've lived here for the past 2+ years and have enjoyed it. Lots of skiing, camping, biking, outdoors stuff to do. And of course 4-wheeling. As already mentioned the inversion can be pretty bad. Usually a storm will clear it out after a couple of days though. I'm not particularly sensitive to it however I do live in Park City/Midway area so I never really have to deal with it except when I go down to the valley for some errands.
In terms of winter prep I've had my 2016 4Runner for 2 winters here and they do salt the roads. I've noticed a fair bit of rust on my undercarriage. Nothing too bad but more surface rust that I had hoped for. From what I understand it's not as bad as the salt used in the Northeast but salt is salt and it's bad for your frame. At a minimum you should get your car undercarriage washed frequently during winters. In the winters I get one of those monthly car wash memberships and try to run it through once or twice a week. Then again I live up higher where there is more snow and more salt used.
In terms of winter prep I've had my 2016 4Runner for 2 winters here and they do salt the roads. I've noticed a fair bit of rust on my undercarriage. Nothing too bad but more surface rust that I had hoped for. From what I understand it's not as bad as the salt used in the Northeast but salt is salt and it's bad for your frame. At a minimum you should get your car undercarriage washed frequently during winters. In the winters I get one of those monthly car wash memberships and try to run it through once or twice a week. Then again I live up higher where there is more snow and more salt used.
jrandom
New member
Today is a good day we just had a light storm cycle roll through and air is already going downhill. The whole tri-city area is affected and parts of the Wasatch Back (ie Park City, Morgan, Heber) the air quality is going to crap more often there too.
I hate to say it, I have lived here most of my 50 years, this place is changing a LOT, not all of it for the better either. Skiing is crowded, hiking/biking/climbing is crowded, deserts are crowded (I suppose most places are now), when you can taste the air you breathe ugh, you have to drive nearly everywhere, housing is getting expensive, mass transit is developing at a snails pace in a car addicted culture, strip malls abound, tech is booming everything else is not, you can't take your dogs into the mountains (watershed). It is not at all a bad place to live as long as you know all the stuff they don't tell you, and most people are generally nice
Check daily here:
https://www.purpleair.com/map#8.54/40.652/-111.0525
I hate to say it, I have lived here most of my 50 years, this place is changing a LOT, not all of it for the better either. Skiing is crowded, hiking/biking/climbing is crowded, deserts are crowded (I suppose most places are now), when you can taste the air you breathe ugh, you have to drive nearly everywhere, housing is getting expensive, mass transit is developing at a snails pace in a car addicted culture, strip malls abound, tech is booming everything else is not, you can't take your dogs into the mountains (watershed). It is not at all a bad place to live as long as you know all the stuff they don't tell you, and most people are generally nice
Check daily here:
https://www.purpleair.com/map#8.54/40.652/-111.0525
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jrandom
New member
True story, for a good portion of the Wasatch Front, the mountains east of Salt Lake, Rio Tinto owns the mountains to the west of the city, big mining, no trespassing. There are a few places you can go... on leash and with plenty of other people. I know quite a few folks that moved here thinking they could take there dogs, pissed when they found out. The Wasatch Back has a lot less restrictions so living there it is less of an issue.
Summers and swimming are not so great either. You can take your dogs to the distant non-watershed reservoirs and deal with fishhooks and broken glass. A lot of clueless “outdoors” people live here, they outweigh the smarter respectful ones,sadly.
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Ziggy-N-Me
New member
Millcreek Canyon is dog friendly, off leash on odd days, 1st 3rd, etc. Small entrance fee, I think $3 per car, but it's worth it, great trails.
Tanner Park right at the mouth of Parley's Canyon is a great place for dogs.
Both of those are in Salt Lake but there is plenty of hiking near in Layton and Ogden where you can take your dog.
Tanner Park right at the mouth of Parley's Canyon is a great place for dogs.
Both of those are in Salt Lake but there is plenty of hiking near in Layton and Ogden where you can take your dog.
jrandom
New member
Oh I know. I use to go up Millcreek before they started charging for it. The canyon/picnic areas/trails are in a little better shape now since they started charging, it was getting pretty trashed. Like I said there are a "few" places you can go. The off-leash dogs parks are pretty limited too.
Imagine this; You come here looking for a job. Hey great place, mountains! You spend ~$500,000+ on a house on/near the bench so you can hike out your back door with your dog off-leash, yeah you can't. In places along the Shoreline trail you're not even allowed to walk yours dogs.
Of course if you want to drive 30+ minutes everywhere to take your fur-buddies your options get better and better. Just don't be under the illusion that Salt Lake and surrounds is as dog friendly as like the entire state of Oregon.
:
My whole point is for such an "outdoorsy" advertised place, you are super limited in what you can do with your dogs in and around the greater metro areas.
Imagine this; You come here looking for a job. Hey great place, mountains! You spend ~$500,000+ on a house on/near the bench so you can hike out your back door with your dog off-leash, yeah you can't. In places along the Shoreline trail you're not even allowed to walk yours dogs.
Of course if you want to drive 30+ minutes everywhere to take your fur-buddies your options get better and better. Just don't be under the illusion that Salt Lake and surrounds is as dog friendly as like the entire state of Oregon.
:My whole point is for such an "outdoorsy" advertised place, you are super limited in what you can do with your dogs in and around the greater metro areas.
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Ziggy-N-Me
New member
I can certainly understand how you feel living in Salt Lake. I live down in gods country, under the Y, and am able to take Ziggy up any canyon. Yes, you are excluded from about half a dozen canyons with your dog, but that's it. My point is there are plenty of places to go. My personal feeling is that not allowing dogs in the watershed is a good cover story so that the folks with the big houses in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons don't have to be bothered with the dogs. I tried to say that as nice as I could. He is moving to Layton and should not have any problems.
LandCruiser
New member
Tech=Californication.Today is a good day we just had a light storm cycle roll through and air is already going downhill. The whole tri-city area is affected and parts of the Wasatch Back (ie Park City, Morgan, Heber) the air quality is going to crap more often there too.
I hate to say it, I have lived here most of my 50 years, this place is changing a LOT, not all of it for the better either. Skiing is crowded, hiking/biking/climbing is crowded, deserts are crowded (I suppose most places are now), when you can taste the air you breathe ugh, you have to drive nearly everywhere, housing is getting expensive, mass transit is developing at a snails pace in a car addicted culture, strip malls abound, tech is booming everything else is not, you can't take your dogs into the mountains (watershed). It is not at all a bad place to live as long as you know all the stuff they don't tell you, and most people are generally nice
Climbing housing prices, sprawl, more taxes, more litter, more traffic, and more progressive legislation meant to improve your life.
I thought that Utah with its religiously conservative backbone would resist a lot of the change, but it's starting to look like Colorado did 10 years ago before everything went to hell.
And honestly tech isn't a great growth industry since it doesn't produce anything, it just injects a lot of people with too much money into the economy and makes everything expensive.
ElectroBoy
Banned
Congrats on the new job. Utah is beautiful and exciting to hike and explore.
But the alcohol laws are terrible.
Say goodbye to getting a decent beer. :sobbing::cheers:
But the alcohol laws are terrible.
Say goodbye to getting a decent beer. :sobbing::cheers:
Joelzy
New member
thanks everyone! Back in Dallas for the week but made the trek despite a snowstorm and got settled in.
Pardon all the nissan pics, 4runner was tucked away waiting for parts after towing it from dallas.
I appreciate the info on the "bad" of The area but its already proving better for us than Texas. We're used to driving 30 miles to have dogs off leash and much much further for outdoor recreation so thats no problem at all and it turns out we're right by antelope island which we've visiting before. Should be plenty for us to do up North. I'm also finding that you can really notice the difference in the amount of people, DFW is over 7 mil and I think the entire state of Utah is around 3.
Maybe Its still leftover from the holidays but i couldn't even find any real traffic so i was pretty happy about that. I'm used to an 8 mile commute that could take 45 minutes at times so needless to say, its a great improvement.
Pardon all the nissan pics, 4runner was tucked away waiting for parts after towing it from dallas.
I appreciate the info on the "bad" of The area but its already proving better for us than Texas. We're used to driving 30 miles to have dogs off leash and much much further for outdoor recreation so thats no problem at all and it turns out we're right by antelope island which we've visiting before. Should be plenty for us to do up North. I'm also finding that you can really notice the difference in the amount of people, DFW is over 7 mil and I think the entire state of Utah is around 3.
Maybe Its still leftover from the holidays but i couldn't even find any real traffic so i was pretty happy about that. I'm used to an 8 mile commute that could take 45 minutes at times so needless to say, its a great improvement.
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jrandom
New member
Good and bad of course are all relative to what you are use to
And yes $2.00-12.00 per bottle/can state liquor store high-point beer is pretty common. You live up north you can do Idaho runs for your liquor and save more than the time and gas it takes to get there
86 Runner
New member
I grew up in the Sandy/Draper area...I miss it every so often - especially around Christmas time (never a white Christmas in San Diego).
If you ever get out to Thanksgiving Point - see if Corner Canyon is still open for off-roading. When I was 16 I used to take my 1986 4Runner up there all the time! I absolutely loved that truck - hence my handle and avatar. Few people know the feeling anymore of having to climb out your truck in the freezing snow to lock your front hubs to get it into 4x4! haha
And Cabela's is now right there too...win/win!
If you ever get out to Thanksgiving Point - see if Corner Canyon is still open for off-roading. When I was 16 I used to take my 1986 4Runner up there all the time! I absolutely loved that truck - hence my handle and avatar. Few people know the feeling anymore of having to climb out your truck in the freezing snow to lock your front hubs to get it into 4x4! haha
And Cabela's is now right there too...win/win!
Jimmyasheville
New member
Recently drove down The interstate thru Salt Lake City. Had lived there years ago. It was shocking to me how much air pollution was in the valley in a Sunday morning, There were signs asking people not to drive unnessarily, but some plants were belching out huge quantities of black stuff near the north end. It was as if a giant wildfire was there, only it was just pollution. Last summer, people were wearing masks where I live to go outside in less smoke than that. I would never ...
Joelzy
New member
So far ive found it looks a lot worse than it is due to the winter inversion holding the smog in. On a “bad” air quality day, which you can see it but not notice otherwise, we looked up other cities in which we have lived/spent a lot of time and believe it or not, dallas and houston were actually worse air quality factors than SLC on the same day. We’re used to that amount of smog in texas its just more visibly noticeable in SLC.
That finally calmed my wife’s nerves about the inversion especially being that we are a good clip north of SLC proper and being on the bench gets you out of the worst of it.
A lot of days SLC looks pretty rough during inversion but we’ll have some blue skies and clear mountain views in Layton.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That finally calmed my wife’s nerves about the inversion especially being that we are a good clip north of SLC proper and being on the bench gets you out of the worst of it.
A lot of days SLC looks pretty rough during inversion but we’ll have some blue skies and clear mountain views in Layton.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
stecow
New member
Hey Joelzy, hope y'all are settling in nicely here in the 'ol beehive state. It would seem that Mother Nature is making up for the lack of snow that we had last year, these last few weeks have been pretty nice with all the snow we've gotten so far.
Hopefully there wasn't too much culture shock when you got here. Since Utah is the HQ for the LDS church and having lots of members here, sometimes religion can bleed into cultural things and that may be a little overwhelming to someone who is not used to it. As someone who has grown up here but also has lived in England, South Africa, and Alaska... there is a definite culture that can take some time to get used to. If you have any questions let me know, if not no worries brother :biggrin1:
Hopefully there wasn't too much culture shock when you got here. Since Utah is the HQ for the LDS church and having lots of members here, sometimes religion can bleed into cultural things and that may be a little overwhelming to someone who is not used to it. As someone who has grown up here but also has lived in England, South Africa, and Alaska... there is a definite culture that can take some time to get used to. If you have any questions let me know, if not no worries brother :biggrin1:
Joelzy
New member
thank you! Settling in nicely now that the wife and I are both done traveling for a while. It was a rough first month but I'm now fully into a new gig thats only 3 miles from the rental house and we're already looking for a house to eventually buy.
I'm loving the snow so far and dont mind the shoveling yet but thats probably the new guy attitude. Haven't had any issues driving in it either although i had to pull out a stuck car and I've seen a bunch of wrecks. Figured everyone here would know how to drive in it but its about like Texans in the rain.
Have definitely noticed the cultural difference you mentioned and it sounds like its not as bad as it once was. I think i noticed it more when trying to find a job but once I got my foot in the door it seems to have faded, at least at this company.
I am definitely interested in clubs and meets or offload ventures if you have any leads on that type of stuff. We know very few people around and while i'm new to the 4runner crowd it' be nice to meet locals.
stecow
New member
Right on brother :thumb:
Yeah I think the first snow storm there were 209 accidents that day (in salt lake valley..or the whole state...I forget) anyway get used to the wide spectrum of the overly aggressive to the overly timid to the overly oblivious. As you can tell I feel very strongly about this haha :car::gun4:
Also unfortunately I'm not in the loop on the adventure crew, sorry mate. I do know there is such a thread somewhere in this forum for Utah offroading, look under "mountain" in the 4Runner and surf clubs section and look for "utah peeps..." something like that. I got my 4Runner back in September and have been slowly reviving it from its neglected state so I haven't felt ready to take it on adventures with the others quite yet. Anyway, I'd probably just check in on that page since you're interested. In fact I'll probably do that now as well
