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What is Fit for Hiking?
Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady, and I'm a longtime fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female. Wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the Fit for Hiking podcast. 1s Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Fit for Hiking podcast. Today we are going to be getting into a topic that doesn't have as much to do with the fitness side of things, but it is very relevant. If you are a mountain loving, adventurous soul, and you have ever considered living near or in the mountains, you need to listen to this episode today, because I'm going to be talking about ten things that I've learned from life at 9500ft living in the mountains, things that I wish I would have known before moving up here. Lessons that we've had to learn the hard way, what we love about it, all of the things. So before I get into all of the nitty gritty details, it's important to kind of understand how we ended up living where we live, because it's a bit of an unconventional story. So. 1s We moved to our current house two years ago. At the time, we were living in our campervan full time. We were currently in California, and we found out that we were pregnant. It was a bit of a shock because we had just gotten married and we had just started not necessarily trying, but we weren't not trying, if that makes sense. We just weren't being very cautious us, and we thought, this will take a while, we're fine. And it happened very fast, a major blessing for sure, but it definitely caught us off guard and we kind of panicked and thought, okay, crap, we need a house. We can't be living out of a van and being pregnant, raising a baby, this is not practical. So we kind of started browsing the market. We knew we wanted to go back to Colorado because that's where our community was, but we both were recently working remote and we knew, okay, we don't necessarily have to move back to Denver, which is where we both were living before we got married. And we don't why don't we kind of look at the foothill areas around Denver? So we still are kind of close to our friends, but we maybe are a little bit out of the city. That was very appealing to us at the time because we had just, like I said, been traveling in our campervan for a while, and we just didn't really want to go back to the city city. So that was kind of our frame of mind. When we started looking well at the market at that time, this was 2021. If you remember anything about the housing market during that year, it was absolutely nuts. Like you had a day or two to even consider a house before it was snatched up. You had to offer so much above asking price. It was just absolutely crazy at the time because interest rates were super low. So. 1s Being in California, we started working with a realtor, but we knew we weren't even going to be able to look at the house physically that we were going to be buying. And we just kind of went for it. We ended up putting an offer on our current house right before going on a long hike. We were literally at the trailhead. I saw the house, we talked to our realtor, we were like, you know, we got to move quick. We didn't even hard we look at it. We just thought, oh, it's in Evergreen. It's a two bed, one bath, kind of small, but whatever, we don't need a lot of space. And we told our Realtor, let's go ahead and put in this offer. And then we went on lost service. And then when we got back 7 hours later, we learned that we had gotten the house and it was a bit of a shock. We started to really look at the photos and we were like, oh wow, okay, interesting. Yeah, this house is definitely a fixer upper. But at the time it was like if we wanted to move to this area of Colorado that we wanted to be in, in the foothills away from Denver, but still close enough that we could access things like the airport and hospitals and such, this was like the perfect area. So we really didn't want to miss out. And we ended up moving forward with it, even though we had never even laid eyes on it. Our realtor didn't even have a chance to go. I mean, that's how fast things were moving. So we ended up getting our house side unseen. Never stepped foot in it until we had already closed the deal. And we were definitely taken by surprise to learn that where we had moved in, evergreen was actually 2000ft higher than the actual town. We were up a mountain pass that took about 20 minutes to get up and we were at an elevation of 9500ft. That is really high and it was a bit shocking 1s and we just really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into, to be honest. So that's why I'm so passionate about kind of sharing both the good sides and the bad. And I by no means want to come across as ungrateful. I recognize fully that living in the mountains is a wonderful privilege and opportunity. So I'm not at all trying to complain, but I do think it's helpful to shed light on both aspects, the good and the bad of mountain living. Because. 1s There was so much that we just didn't know, as, you know, newbie homeowners and moving to a home in such an interesting and unique area where there's a lot of different considerations and we just didn't know. So I want to share ten lessons that I've learned from mountain living over the last two years. Okay? So first one, altitude matters. There is massive difference between, for instance, 7500ft and 9500ft. I don't think we realize just how drastically different the weather would be from the town of Evergreen versus our house because, hello, it's only 20 minutes away. How could it be that different? And let me tell you, it is a massive difference when you're looking at 1500 to 2000ft of a difference here. So just for some perspective, temperatures can vary five to ten degrees every 1000ft. So think about that. I mean, Denver, for instance, is at 52 80. So that is over 4000ft lower than where we currently live. And even though it's only about a 45 minutes drive to certain parts of Denver, the temperature can be 20 to 30 degrees colder at our house on any given day, especially in the winter and spring. So that's just a massive thing that I did not realize how much of a difference it would make. Even though I'd done a lot of hiking and things like that. I think I was just blissfully unaware and just wanted to live in the mountains. It sounded so amazing and idyllic and I didn't really think about the reality of what that would be like on a year round basis, not just during summer and fall months where everything is so beautiful. So things like the wind, precipitation, snow, melts, animals, fire, danger, all of these different things are going to vary greatly based on your altitude. So it's really important to kind of be aware of the altitude that you're looking at. And is it something that realistically, you want to be up against on a year round basis if this is going to be your primary home? Right? It's quite different if it's like a vacation home or something like that. But if this is where you're living most of the year, if not all the year, that's something you really need to take into consideration. If you're not much of a winter person, if high winds kind of freak you out, if you don't want snow on the ground for seven months out of the year, then you're probably not going to want to live at a super high elevation. Okay? 1s So that is one thing that you don't want to take lightly simply for the sake of living in the mountains. And that was definitely a mistake that we made. My husband likes it a little bit more than I do. He's more of a winter person. He doesn't mind that there's snow for so much of the year. It really gets to me, though. Like, when I look at the forecast in Denver, and it's 70 and sunny, and it's like high forty s and sleeting out of the house, I get so mad because the weather in Denver is just most of the time, except like, the middle of summer, it's so much better in Denver. Obviously, there's a trade off, right. We have a lot to enjoy up here, but the weather can really be a frustrating factor that affects your quality of life more than I realized. Okay, number two, take inspections really, really seriously when it comes to a mountain home, especially when you're looking at big foundational things. So these are things like your water supply, your roof quality, the foundation status of the home, septic system quality and drainage. All of these different things are going to potentially be massive costs. So obviously a fixer upper is one thing from a cosmetic standpoint, but it's a totally different beast if there is underlying massive costs from a foundational standpoint that are just going to end up being a money pit. I speak to this from very personal experience. When we moved into our home, we got a water test done for the well because we're on a well here. So we got our well test conducted when we were still going through the inspection phase. It came back pretty underwhelmingly. Good. We were not happy with it. We were told, oh, we ran the water for about 40 minutes, and it ran out. And we were like, whoa, what? That seems alarming. But we were kind of convinced, unknowingly by the seller's agent and realtor, that that's common in a mountain home on a well that you're not going to have as high of water pressure or just water quantity at a high elevation in a mountain home with a well. In hindsight, we were definitely taken advantage of because we didn't really know to push back on that and question it. And about eight months into living in our home, we had our well completely run dry. We dealt with a year and a half of water insecurity where we were having to actively ration water, not shower, not be able to run our laundry. We were having to go to laundry mat. We were on a list to get a new well, and it ended up costing us. 1s $45,000. I share that only because I think it's really important to stress how much you need to take it seriously. If you're looking at a mountain home, these big foundational things are not to be taken lightly in any home, but especially if it's in an area where you're just not really familiar. I had never lived on a well property before, so I just didn't know how big of a deal it be if the well wasn't functioning optimally. And drilling a new well was honestly one of the most stressful things that I've ever gone through personally, because it was so hard to save up for that and then watch that money just go down the drain. It was an immense stress on us. So I just share that because I want you to take it seriously. If you're going through the inspection process and there's a really big foundational thing like that, don't overlook it for the sake of living in the mountains, really take that seriously. Ask questions, get the appropriate inspections, and if you're worried about something like that, listen to your gut, because it's definitely going to end up being a big money pit, and that's a big deal. So things like that, you want to take very seriously when it comes to an inspection. 1s It's better to do cosmetic stuff. If the house looks great but has big foundational issues, that's not necessarily the house that you want to go with. All right. Number three is to kind of along the lines of number two, be prepared for some hidden costs. So these are kind of smaller costs, but they do add up, so I feel like it's important to share. So one would be an ATV with a plow. That was something that we had to purchase because our driveway is long and steep, and the snow here is very intense. A standard plow would not cut it. So we had to spend about $5,000 on an ATV with a plow on the front in order to flower our driveway. Even still, we would have to use 1s what's it called, not spikes, chains on our tires during certain icy seasons. So just something to consider that snow mitigation is going to be a very big deal, and you're going to have some hidden costs with that, whether you're hiring it out or you're doing it yourself and having to get the equipment. The next is tree mitigation. So this is something that you'll probably need to do every year. If you live in a very tree dense area, you're going to have dead trees that are a danger to your house when it gets windy. So you have to pay for the tools, chainsaws, things like that in order to cut down the trees and dispose of them. It's also a big task. So just something to consider. There trash bins that are bear safe. We have bears in our area, which I will get into in a little bit. So we had to pay a little bit extra when it came to our 1s trash bins. So that's a small cost, but just something to consider. 2s Heating bill can be very high in the mountains. Oftentimes old mountain homes don't have awesome window ceiling. The windows might be old. The insulation just is a bit subpar at our house. So even though we have a wood burning stove that we will use frequently in the winter, we also still run off of electric heat, too. And the cost can be so high in the winter. I'm talking like $500 to $600 a month. So just something to think about. Your standard mortgage is what it is. But you're also going to have potentially a very high heating bill depending on how high altitude, how cold, how good your insulation is at your home, 1s and just general exterior maintenance. When you're living at a very high altitude, you're having more precipitation, more wind, more wear and tear on the exterior of your home. So the chances of needing to paint it and do maintenance, renovations, and things like that more frequently is going to be higher. 1s It. Okay. Number four, it can be a bit isolating at times. So, for instance, we came from Denver to a town called evergreen. It's about 45 minutes to an hour in good weather, and it was a really big adjustment, to be honest, because in Denver, everyone's young, everyone's social. It's just a totally different culture than a mountain town, specifically this mountain town that we moved to for the first, I would say about eight months to nine months that we lived up here. We didn't really know anyone. I was pregnant when we moved in. We were just in the thick of house projects, trying to make it at least somewhat livable, and I wasn't feeling great. And then it was winter, and then people kind of pull up in their homes, and if you don't already know people, it can be extremely isolating. We both work from home, and with the issues that we had, like adjusting to winter and getting down the mountain pass in winter weather, that was really tough. I didn't feel safe to leave the house. I had all this anxiety about driving the mountain pass while pregnant, and it was just hard. It was definitely an adjustment, to be honest, I kind of hated it. For the first year we lived up here, I thought, what did we do? Like, I miss being close to friends. I would want to know, just hop in a workout class or join my friends on a Friday night, and it would be nice in Denver, and we would be stuck in our driveway because of all the accumulating snow, and it was really hard. As a young person, I think I didn't factor in how tough it could be as far as isolation. So my tip would be to get connected in the community as soon as possible. 2s By joining activities, figuring out what's going on in your neighborhood. We joined a neighborhood softball league that plays in the town of Evergreen and that is literally the only reason that we met all of our friends here and got connected into the community. I'm so glad that we ended up doing that because otherwise I think we would have probably moved and just thought, okay, well, I guess we're never going to meet people up here. It was so difficult that first year. So finding some activities to join, it doesn't even have to be sports, but finding something, going to events at your local rec center or your local church or your local park, looking for ways to get involved, actively putting yourself out there, it's a bit uncomfortable, but it's really the only way. And you want to meet people who are close by. Let me tell you, having all of your friends 45 minutes to an hour away, especially when you have a newborn, is really lonely. And so meeting people in the community was the best thing that we did up here. And also when you're choosing your home, factor in are you going to be comfortable driving in the winter to and from your house frequently with the mountain pass? Like I mentioned, it's like a million switchbacks, not a lot of guardrails. It's very sketchy in the winter, the snow doesn't really melt because it's so shaded from trees. And I still get anxiety driving to town from my own house in the winter. And that's hard because then you have this big mental barrier. Every time you want to go to the gym, you want to go do something social, you need to go to the grocery store. So it's just something to think about. Make sure that you are comfortable driving the roads to and from town from your house in all seasons. Definitely recommend that. It will help with the isolation big time if you feel comfortable leaving your home year round. Okay, next one. Number five is you're going to worry more about animals than humans from a safety standpoint. We have bears and mountain lions up at our house, and so my advice would be to do some research as far as what wildlife are you going to be deal dealing with. There are definitely mountainous areas that don't have to deal with any of that in Colorado. But our neighborhood has a lot of wildlife. We're up really high. This neighborhood has always had wildlife, and it's a really fun thing. But it also is safety consideration. I don't like to go for walks with my daughter 1s when it's getting dark out or even just in the middle of the day. Sometimes I feel a bit uncomfortable because the wildlife does come out during the day sometimes. So from one standpoint, the safety, we don't worry about people. We don't worry about people breaking into our cars or our house the same way that we did when we were in the city. However, you do have to worry about animals, and it's just something to think about when you're choosing the area that you want to live. If it's mountainous, just think about would I be comfortable going for a run by myself in this neighborhood? From a human or wildlife standpoint, it's important to factor in both. And of course, no area is going to be 100% safe. But it is something that I wish I could go comfortably on a run in my own neighborhood, and I just don't really feel like I can because of animals. 3s As far as the wildlife thing, it's also just good to consider the hurdles that you'll have. So, from one example, would be when we first moved in, we dealt with a lot of bear issues with our packages and trash. I had a big order arrive. I was about to lead a retreat, and I had a sponsorship from Kodiak Cakes. So they delivered all of this stuff like protein pancake mix, they're like granola bars, all of these different items. And it came late, so I had already left for the retreat, came back four days later, and bears had absolutely demolished this package. You guys, it was insane. There was just remnants all over the yard. They had broken into our trash bins. They had broken the locks off, and there was just trash everywhere. And then they would just chuck our trash bins down the mountain. This happened super frequently until we got a little bit smarter and realized, okay, we can store our trash bins in our garage safely. They're not going to be able to break the door down. But for a while, it was such a battle and we had to kind of learn, okay, we're never able to order anything with a scent. Not even just food, but anything that has a scent. If we're going to be gone, we need to make sure that we're home. We used to order our dog food to just be delivered on a consistent basis. We had to stop doing that because there was way too many times when it would get delivered when we weren't home, and it would just get annihilated by the bears. So things like that, grilling, making sure you're cleaning your grill properly, being careful when you're going outside at night, having a bear horn and bear spray with you, things like that. Bears do break into cars up here. We actually haven't had that happen yet, but I've had friends that it's happened to. So not keeping food in your car, keeping your car locked from the bears, things like this definitely are something to consider if you are moving to an area with active wildlife. So. Okay, number six, you're going to probably have to make some concessions from a house quality standpoint in order to live in the mountains, unless you're a millionaire. This is something that we've had so many conversations around because we are actually looking to move to a bigger home down the mountain a little bit. And the reality is for the price point that we're looking, that to stay in this area, the quality and size of the house is much lower than if we were to move to denver and be in more residential suburb area. We could get a much newer, nicer, bigger home with massive bathrooms and bigger closets and all of these different things. But we'd be conceding on living in the mountains, which we really love. And it's important to us to have that peace and quiet and the trees and the land. So you have to really kind of weigh the cost of what's most important to you. Is it having a move and ready newer home with big bathrooms, big closets, maybe a bigger garage, really beautiful interior, 1s not having to worry about some of these things that I've talked about? Or is it more important to you to live in an area that you really love, have a bit more space, have beautiful views, live in a mountain community? And are you okay with accepting a less move in ready house? Not as big, not as nice. You might have more of a fixer upper. That's definitely something that you have to consider. When we moved into our home, we just really wanted to get into the mountains, and so we were okay with coming to a place that was more of a fixer upper, but that's us. That was our personality. We wanted to live in the mountains. We wanted to give it a try. If you aren't up for the projects, if you want more of a move in ready home turnkey, then mountain living might not be for you unless you have a massive budget, because that's just kind of how it goes. The cost is really high to live up here. I mean, it's high everywhere right now, even in cities, but it's that much higher in a mountainous area. So it's definitely something to weigh out. And it's a conversation that we've had so many times because we know that the amount of house that we can get for our budget is a lot smaller up here. But to us right now, this could change. But right now, we're really sticking to our guns about wanting to continue living in a mountainous area because we just love it that much. And it would be really hard to go back to suburb living after living up here. That's just our personal opinion about what is best for us. So you kind of have to think about that for yourself. 1s It. Okay. Number seven, you will probably have to drive a lot further to get to things such as airports, hospitals, schools, social activities, and even just going to the grocery store or grabbing gas is going to be a bit more of a drive for us. It's about 20 to 25 minutes to get to the grocery, restore, get gas, but to get to the airport, it's an hour. 15 to get to the hospital where I gave birth to juniper, it was about an hour. So there's just some considerations like that. If you hate spending time in the car, you don't want to have to drive everywhere, and you like just being five minutes from your local gym, grocery store, things like that, then mountain living is probably not going to be for you. Unless you can find a spot right near town. The cost just tends to be a lot higher if you're looking right in a mountain town. So we weren't able to get anything that close. The best we could do is where we are at the price point, so we have to drive a little bit further. We've gotten used to it. And the reality is, you also have to drive a lot less to get to things like ski resorts, hiking trails, beautiful mountain sunset views, all these different things. You're going to drive less potentially on the weekends to the activities that you want to do, but you're going to be driving a little bit more in the day to day and also just to see friends. That's been a big thing for us. Most of our friends still are in Denver, so we do have to do a lot of driving just to socialize. Okay. Number eight, cell service may not exist at your house if you move to the mountains. We have absolutely zero cell service at our house. So before we were able to get hooked up with wi fi, we could not text, we couldn't work, we couldn't make calls. It felt very colonial. When we first moved in, we were just sitting here like, well, should we play cards? We're so used to watching netflix or just being able to google something or give someone a call. And we couldn't do any of that for about a week after we moved in, because wi fi was actually really hard to get up here due to the location, all of the trees, different, things like that. So just know if you move to the mountains, you might struggle a bit initially to get good WiFi, and if the WiFi drops, you might be left with no cell service. That's happened to us many times until we kind of got our WiFi situation worked out. And it was really frustrating since we both do work remotely and we rely on WiFi for our jobs. 1s It number nine, depending on elevation. You will probably have more months of solid winter than you would if you were obviously living lower elevation in a city. Snow at our house lasts from October through. We'll still be getting snow in June, so it's a good seven to eight months. It's on the ground for almost that entire time without melting as well. So that was something that was quite different. In Denver. Snow melts. Everyone always talks about it like, oh, you get a snowstorm and then it melts, and then you're on a patio the next day. Not the case the higher that you go. So that was definitely something that was hard for me to adjust to, is not being able to just go for walks year round in our neighborhood and dealing with just the snow that would not melt. It's definitely an adjustment coming from a place where you can go for a walk year round and you can go sit on a patio and not have to deal with constant snow accumulation on the ground. So. 2s You know, weighing out whether you prefer even, like, a mountain view from a residential area that's lower down or to actually live in the mountains, it's very different, and the altitude will be the biggest determinant of kind of what that's going to be like for you. So, again, just doing your due diligence with research of the area so that you're not caught off guard or so surprised by the weather or the amount of snow accumulation that you get. All right, the final one, number ten, is that once you move to the mountains, you probably will never want to leave. Despite all of the frustrations, like I said, after the first year, I was ready to throw in the towel. I thought, okay, well, I tried it. This isn't for me. I hate it. I feel so isolated. And then we started to really get connected. We started to figure out what works for us. We traveled a bit during the winter to give ourselves a break. We found awesome childcare, met great friends, and we just really feel like this is home now. And at this point, like I said, we're moving, and we really want to stay in this area. A little bit lower down, but we want to stay in this area, so. 2s I will say, even though there are hardships, it's really hard not to fall in love with living in a place where you have peace and quiet mountain views. You don't have the constant sound of cars. You have a safety component. You're in an awesome community, has a small town feel the wildlife. It's just beautiful. And it's an awesome way to live. If you can withstand some of the barriers and the hardships and get through that first winter, 1s it makes it really hard to leave. So I know I listed a lot of hard things, but all of that being said to us, it's worth it. It has been far more wonderful and rewarding than it even has been hard. Despite all of the hidden expenses and the learning curve and the projects and the months of isolation that we felt up here, it's really starting to feel like home in this past year. And so, all of the bad things considered, we still love it. I still recommend it. But I do think it's helpful to kind of take all of these things that I mentioned into consideration, which is why I wanted to put out this episode. So I hope that you have found this insightful and helpful. If you guys have any questions about mountain living, you can always shoot me a DM at the Fit Underscore for Hiking Instagram page, my personal page as well, ponytail Underscore on the Trail. I'm always answering dams on both of those accounts, so if you have questions, I love talking about this stuff. I think it's really fun. So send me a message. Let me know if you found this episode helpful. If there's anything else about mountain living or my experiences living where we do that you would like to hear an episode about, let me know. I am all ears, and I want to hear your guys feedback. Thank you so much for tuning in today, and I will see you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Fit for Hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at ponytail underscore on a Trail. That's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for Hiking and find more free resources@ponytailonatrail.com. Happy and healthy trails.