Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Tell Me About Moscow Idaho

Just curious about possible move.Any recommendations? Thanks

It sounds cold.

Close to great fishing, hunting and lots of gun nuts. Wide open palouse hills, small college town that seasonally changes population with the school. Home of nrs rafts.....I would have a good job nailed down, if you are looking to expand the radius a bit, peck, orofino....that direction is cheaper and better for a sportsman. Orofino is home of nightforce.

horse country ,quads fairly close to 3 good sized cities ,open
plains in WASH state Rolling hills in Idaho,i like it

norm

1) Appaloosa horses were named for this region.
2) My niece-in-law was born & raised there & she's a very sweet young lady.
3) They farm the hills with anchor cats up hill from the seeders to keep them from side-slipping down as they seed around those bee-hive hills.
4) That's all I think I might possibly know about the subject.
5)

As was mentioned above I would have a job lined up before thinking of that area. As college towns go it it is a pretty nice place but I would also look east toward Troy, Deary, and Kendrick to live. I especially like the area around Kendrick. As was mentioned Orofino is another good area if you can find work also.

Spent 6 years there taking care of undergrad and grad school and would agree with all that has been said thus far. Would also strongly agree about the communities to the east and south if that is a possibility. No shortage of outdoor stuff to do.

Weather wise I found it to be just about perfect with nothing extreme in terms of summer and winter. The fall and harvest season on the Palouse was one of my favorite times of the year. I think a lot of the winter weather is influenced by the systems that roll up the Columbia and Snake Rivers from the Pacific. Lewistown, ID/Clarkston, WA, which are just about 30 miles south of Moscow along the Snake, have seemingly very temperate winters.

I do miss the fall colors of the larch/tamarack on Moscow mountain.

I went to school there and have inlaws there. I'm in and out of Moscow. It's a high priced town for Idaho. Housing is high for the area because of the University. Gas has always been very high but last time I was there, it was comparable to Lewiston.
If you travel, there is a small airport there but it's worth the 100 mile drive to Spokane for a much cheaper ticket.
There are some really classy older homes there, built in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Very picturesque. As is the case with most older towns, the downtown area deteriorated as business moved to the outskirts. They've renovated downtown to a bunch of small shops and it's a nice place. The big stores are on the west side along the WA border.
Some of the streets are like Seattle - steep. You'll quickly learn which are too steep for safe driving in winter...or pay the price.
There used to be good pheasant hunting right around Moscow, but it's pretty much gone. Big game, though, is good. You have whitetails, elk, moose, and bear within an easy drive. If you drive 30 miles to Lewiston, you have the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers with boating, steelhead fishing, whitewater rafting, and waterfowl hunting.

If you're a college football fan, bring a clothespin for your nose. The Idaho Vandals left the Big Sky conference some years ago to try to play with the big boys and it was a disaster. They seldom win more than a couple games a year. They ruled the Big Sky until their heads got too big.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like a great place to live and raise a family.

I retired in Moscow, and then I moved down along the river. Moscow is about as liberal a place as you will find in Idaho. It would not be unusual to find a man wearing a dress to the grocery store. Same for Pullman, but I think more gravitate to Moscow.

If you wander down around the Co-op, expect to find a lot of Subarus with Obama stickers on them. The county itself mostly votes democrat, but the majority of those votes originate in Moscow. You only have to travel about 15 miles to find real down to earth humans again. If you go into a store in Moscow, and then into a store in Lewiston, you can immediately notice the differences in the two populations.

While there are many hard working blue collar types in Moscow, one striking thing to me is the amount of damaged hands in Lewiston. Moscowites as a whole do much more genteel work.

In 30 some years of driving the Palouse in a service truck, I never once saw a cat anchoring a seeder. I must have vision impairments I am unaware of.

For many years I drove to Spokane to fly, but with the increase in gas prices, I now fly out of either Lewiston or Moscow/Pullman. The difference in ticket price is usually less than the price of gas to get to Spokane. Additionally, parking is free at Lewiston, thereby enabling one to save more.

Weather in Moscow can be tricky. When I started driving that service truck in the 70's, every truck of the fleet had snow shoes on it. Now the winters that people decry as horrible are about equal to what was normal 20 to 30 years ago. You can still get snow piled 4-5 feet high in the middle of the road with a lane plowed on either side of the snow berm.

If you like artsy fartsy, Moscow may be the home for you. Otherwise look out of town.

Property is high, but then it is in quite a bit of Idaho.

I might add this about the Idaho Vandals...when they ruled, they beat Boise State 8 straight years. The BSU Boosters were getting pretty tired of it to say the least. Then they acted with their wallets. They hired a new coach, gave him a huge recruiting budget, and gave him 1 duty - beat Idaho. The rest is history. They simply outspent the small town Idaho boosters to put together the usual college semi-pro team.

I was raised in north Idaho and spent 14 years off and on in Moscow working and going to the university. Left the area for work in 1990 but still have friends there. I agree with almost everything said so far except for the anchor cats and elk hunting. Talked to an old friend last year and he told me that the wolf reintroduction has really hit the elk population hard. Still it is beautiful area of low rolling hills, 4 seasons without the brutal cold and wind of the Rockies (Colorado, Wyoming, Montana). Winters were usually damp and gloomy but the spring, summer and fall were outstanding. Lots of public land to explore, camp, hunt and fish. The elevation is about 2500 feet and heading south to Lewiston it is about 600 feet at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers (Lewiston/Clarkston). It is much warmer in Lewiston/Clarkston in the winter and the summer! One nice thing about the area is that there were hardly any traffic problems compared to places like Denver. Best of luck in your move.

Ah yes, the good old Big Sky conference days with John Friesz and Doug Nussmeier. I agree that they bit off more than they could chew when jumping up to I-A to play with the big boys.

Wolves have pretty much chewed up the elk population in the more remote areas, but if you do not mind green field hunting there is still excellent elk hunting in Latah county.

my dad ran the crane that set the roof on the kibbe dome. while elk hunting may have regressed, it is still more favorble than the neighbor to the west.

Nice little town, one of my brothers earned an Engineering degree there, they also have a very good law school. The hunting isn't like it used to be but thats the case everywhere, except maybe Texas.
Back in the day the Vandals played some outstanding football but thats a long gone memory, they should get back into the Big Sky Conference where they belong. Boise State's walk on's could beat them now, heck maybe even Idaho State.......not!

Dick

Good hunting and fishing and farming country. Last week I was over close to the Palouse deer hunting and my hunting partner took a nice 5x7 Muley out of the winter wheat fields.





There must have been 150/200 deer in that bowl with him including at least two or three more bucks in there with him with at least as big or bigger racks as his. There is also Elk and excellent upland bird, duck and goose hunting ion the area.

Before I graduated in '70, they started adding to our fees to build the dome. I never saw a game in it until years later but I have quite a few $$ in it.

Funny thing is, they only play one game a year in the Kibble Dome. When they moved up with the big boys, one stipulation is the stadium you play in has to hold more people than the Kibble Dome. So pretty much all the home games get played over at WSU's Martin Stadium.

Mockba on the Palouse.
Little commie college town.
The Palouse country and the Ivy League towns are neat, tho.
I'd say look at stuff outside a ten-mile radius to be clear of the college politics.