Need input on relocation choices: Fort Collins, Cheyenne Mountain or Woodland Park?

[beezle1]

One nice thing about the Colorado Springs area, is that if you find it lacking in some things, Denver is only about an hour away. Make sure the things you need on a daily basis are convenient to you, and travel to Denver on occasion for those things you cannot get in the Springs. For example, we do get some big name concerts in the Springs, but they are kind of few and far between, so often I find myself going up to Denver for concerts.
Cheyenne Mountain area and Woodland Park are both very nice areas. Woodland Park can be an issue for some that have to commute into the Springs for work, as sometimes Highway 24 gets a bit challenging when it snows. Woodland Park will also be a little cooler than other areas around.

[beezle1]

And other areas with trees and larger lots that you might look at in the Colorado Springs area are: Black Forest, Monument/Woodmoor, Crystal Park (hills above Manitou Springs, some with awesome views).

[neenernee11]

!st thing I recommend...if you can rent for a year while you decide, GREAT! If you cannot. Please narrow your choices down and try to see the prospective areas at all times of day, both weekdays and weekends. Being that we are on summer vacation for kids, results can be misleading. COS is NOT a bible thumping city by any means! The worst offenders happen to be in the far northern parts of COS, but that still does not represent all residents there. Manitou is a great progressive and mostly liberal city. The land and houses are VERY pricey per sq/ft. Up the pass you have some smaller communities. At this moment, the majority are in a "live and let live" mindset. If you enjoy more house and land for your money, c'mon down! We need to continue to grow as a community, not shrink.

[myrab]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

...
Try them all for a week or so. Stay (house) with locals and enjoy the research. There are 'family' opportunities for Hospitality Homes. I have been using them World Wide for 25+ yrs, and found guest homes very helpful in learning about regions and cultures and activities.

Great idea StealthRabbit!

[wolfiebear]

If it's mountains you want in Colorado, there is no mountain feel to Colorado Springs at all. . . just a large city that can be very trying to get around in. There are some mountain views to the west, though. It's also very hot there too. Of course, I realize some folks enjoy the heat, I'm just not one of them. All the cities down in the plains are going to be very hot except during the winter months which can even get a triflings of snow.

Folks who are not from here, seem to have this notion that simply because a city is at +/-5,000 feet, it is in the mountains. But in Colorado, +/-5,000 ft would be the desert floor, so it's all relative. For instance, in California where the desert floor isn't much above sea level, at 5,000 you can be in some serious mountain forests and quite a bit of snow. . .but not out here in Colorado.

I thought it was fair to make mention of these things as folks quite innocently, just don't usually know this.

[smdensbcs]

Originally Posted by wolfiebear

If it's mountains you want in Colorado, there is no mountain feel to Colorado Springs at all.

I don't know, I live in the SW part of town, in the foothills adjacent to Bear Creek Park, and it feels pretty mountainy most of the time. The herds of deer that wander our neighborhoods (and poop in our yard constantly) feels pretty mountainy. The bear we saw slowly saunterning down our street at 5:00 pm on a Saturday last fall on his way somewhere seemed pretty mountainy. The reports we get of mountain lion several times a year seem pretty mountainy. Walking from our house, through Bear Creek Park, up the trails of Section 16, down through Red Rock Canyon rock formations seems pretty mountainy. Looking west pretty much anywhere in town and seeing vast panoramas of hills and mountains, with Pikes Peak as the centerpiece seems pretty mountainy. Driving 60-90 minutes and being in the midst of the magnificent Sangre de Christo or Collegiate Peak ranges seems a bit more mountainy that, say, Ohio. Other than that, I guess you're right, not much mountain feel.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by wolfiebear

If it's mountains you want in Colorado, there is no mountain feel to Colorado Springs at all. . . just a large city that can be very trying to get around in. There are some mountain views to the west, though. It's also very hot there too. Of course, I realize some folks enjoy the heat, I'm just not one of them. All the cities down in the plains are going to be very hot except during the winter months which can even get a triflings of snow.

Folks who are not from here, seem to have this notion that simply because a city is at +/-5,000 feet, it is in the mountains. But in Colorado, +/-5,000 ft would be the desert floor, so it's all relative. For instance, in California where the desert floor isn't much above sea level, at 5,000 you can be in some serious mountain forests and quite a bit of snow. . .but not out here in Colorado.

I thought it was fair to make mention of these things as folks quite innocently, just don't usually know this.

This post is extremely inaccurate about the Colorado Springs climate. Colorado Springs is actually about the coolest (in summertime temperatures) city on the Front Range. Colorado Springs averages 15 days about 90° in a typical summer, Denver 31, Fort Collins 20, Greeley 46, and Pueblo 60. Colorado Springs can feel hotter in the sun because it sits at a higher elevation than all of the aforementioned locales, but its typical summer temperatures are lower. Colorado Springs also gets more rain in the summer than any of the other Front Range cities mentioned above and is the most-thunderstorm prone city of them, as well.

While Colorado Springs itself sits on the Great Plains, of all the Front Range cities, it about the closest to the mountains, though admittedly the difference in distance from mountains compared to Denver or Fort Collins is not a lot. Colorado Springs is much closer to the mountains than is Pueblo or Greeley.

I am no lover of Colorado Springs for the same reason that I disdain all of the Front Range cities--out of control growth, water-wasting habits that damage the rest of the state, and uncontrolled ugly urban sprawl. That said, Colorado Springs, by far, has the most agreeable climate of any major Colorado city, in my opinion.

As far as the "religion" thing goes, I agree that Colorado Springs' reputation as nothing but a bunch of Bible-thumpers is horse puckey, as well. Most of Colorado is pretty "secular" when it comes to religion, and always has been. Coloradans tend to be much less judgmental about one's faith (or lack thereof) than many places--the Bible Belt it ain't.

[xeric]

I don't know much about CO. Springs so I won't comment on it, except to say that I think it has the most spectacular mountain backdrop of all the Front Range cities. And I know almost nothing about Woodland Park.

As to Fort Collins, it's politically moderate, reasoanably sized (although getting bigger every year), and there is a fair amount to do for a smaller city. All in all it's a very nice place to live. But most of the city is too close to the foothills to afford a view of the high Rockies and in most cases the foothills that you can see are fairly low and non-descript. So don't expect much of view compared to places like CO. Springs, Boulder, or even Denver.

As to close-in, outlying areas, you're looking at basically three types of environments: plains, foothills, and montane pine forest. The first two are too dry for any type of natural tree growth with the exception of areas along rivers or creeks. In those instances, you'll have potential ribbons of large cotttonwood trees but they won't spread very far in a perpendicular direction to the watercourse. Also, perennial watercourses are rare in eastern CO so you'd likely have to pay a premium to get acreage on one, and you'd likely not have rights to use any of the water. The natural vegetation on the plains is short grass prairie and any trees growing on a property there (besides the aforementioned) would have been planted and need to be watered. The natural vegetation of the foothills environment around Fort Collins is deciduous shrubland on slopes, interspersed with plains grassland (in flatter areas). Finally, the mountains have Ponderosa pine forests but you have to get above the elevation of FC (which is at roughly 5000' to get into that biome). How high you have to go depends on the aspect of the slope: north-facing slopes (and east-facing to a lesser extent) are cooler/colder with less summer evapotransporation and so pines start occurring there at a much lower elevation than on south-facing slopes. It's hard to give an elevation at which the pine belt starts - in the FC area 6000 feet is probably the bare minimum for a north/east facing slope (but those pines are rarely higher than 20-30 feet). The closest pine forest along a road is 10-15 miles from the western part of the city.

The reason I'm going into this much detail (aside from a personal interest in natural vegetation) is that, coming from Virginia, you may not realize that cities in most of the West are much more wooded than the surrounding non-developed areas (at least the older parts of cities). That's because it requires human intervention to grow trees here, and nobody is going to be able to afford to do that on larger, non-urban lots. In that sense, it's the opposite of most of the eastern US where the amount of tree cover decreases in developed areas.

To summarize: if you want trees combined with acreage here, you're limited to the mountain forests. But be aware of the very real fire danger in those areas as well as accessibility issues (particularly in the winter).