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I'm looking at a possible move to salt lake. Any members out there? Any nice ranges or shops to check out?

Is salt lake a good place to call home or should I not pack up the truck?

Let's hear the good and bad

Thanks

Last edited by stevenautique; 04/20/15.
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I haven't lived there but just driving through it during rush hour is the highway from hell. IMHO of course. It's not quite a 2 hour drive. Do your self a favor and if you decide to make the move, live close to work. smile


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The whole valley is high desert and without irrigation, it would blow away. However, because of the lake effect, they do get some glorious storms at inconvenient times.


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Thanks for the information.

I would like to hear more.

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There are some good rifle ranges and the whole valley is well stocked with all manner of outdoor shops. Hunting, RVing, skiing, you name it the Salt Lake Valley has a shop for it.

The suggestion to live close to work isn't a bad one. But there are longer distance commutes that aren't bad. Great neighborhoods in most all parts of the valley, just depends on what you like.

I lived in the area for 9 years and if I move back to the West, it's not on my radar for top picks. That said, I would pick it over most any place I know of in the mid/upper midwest. You'll be close to a lot of fun outdoor places, but so are lots of folks. It can take a bit of travel to really get away from the crowds, but you're a 5 hour drive away from a great diversity of landscapes and things to do.

Unless you are LDS, be prepared to be a religious minority. It wasn't that big of a deal for me, but was for my wife. To sum up the social aspect of SLC, I'd say it's the friendliest place I've been but the hardest place to make friends. I'm sure that would've changed had we/I made a more concerted effort to get involved in groups and activities.

Last edited by pointer; 04/20/15.
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I don't live there but spend quite a bit of time there. It is a BIG CITY with all the attendant problems, but if I had to live in a city I would go there before most any other place I have been. Live close to work.


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It's an OK place for a city. Much of your perception will be based on where you're coming from and what you're comparing it to.
Good:
- Utah has lots of Mormons and the outdoors is empty on Sunday
- close access to mountains & deserts
- great skiing (I'm not a skier but that's what I hear)
- decent restaurants
- lots of shooting ranges
Bad:
- it's a city with traffic, bums, druggies and gangs
- inversions in the winter, go high or go south
- it's the most progressive/liberal area in the state

If you do move, stay away from West Valley City.


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I was told that there are more former Los Angeles residents in Salt Lake than there are native born Utah types. A lot of LA moved up there when LA went bust in the 90s. But the good news is that you are just a few hours from Moab.


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Originally Posted by Ranger_Green
I was told that there are more former Los Angeles residents in Salt Lake than there are native born Utah types. A lot of LA moved up there when LA went bust in the 90s. But the good news is that you are just a few hours from Moab.


salt lake, the city itself is very liberal, very san francisco like. The Mormon culture isn't a big deal, your neighbors will likely know each other alot more. It really depends on the part of the valley you live in. lots of outdoor stores to spend money, we have everyone but bass pro. We are also getting a second cabelas. Gun ranges there are a couple options, one is run by the state, its the nicest but they exert too much control over it. The other bountiful lions is my preference but they are further from me. The best in the state is down by price utah. They give you a golf cart to go check your targets with. its the cross roads of the west truely. You have the amazing rivers of idaho to the north if you fly fish, red rock to the south and east. high deserts of nevada to the west. I could retire and just worry about the next adventure and never get bored.

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Salt Lake City is like any other city in our country wrt living there... good and bad with all! I agree with what most have already said.

I've lived in my share of places (west/midwest) over the years, including Alaska; SLC; Fargo, N.D.; Kansas City; Hutchinson, KS; Southern California; and various other towns in Utah. Here is my take and I will add that I am LDS.

Good:
1. Salt Lake is relatively clean and safe for a typical city. Still has some tougher areas and not as "sheltered" as it used to be.
2. Great climate! SLC is basically in a high desert valley surrounded by beautiful mountains which collect lots of snow in the winter for recreation and fill beautiful streams and lakes in the summer for recreation, all locally! You can be outside year round and enjoy yourself!
3. Proximity to outdoor "paradise" elsewhere. SLC is within 2-3 hours drive formally other beautiful areas along the Wasatch Front and western Wyoming. SLC is only 3-6 hours away from southern Idaho, Sun Valley, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, central Wyoming, Flaming Gorge, the Western Slope of Colorado, Moab, multiple southern Utah National Parks like Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, etc., Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon and St. George to the south.
4. A longer days drive or easy flight out of SLC will get you to Denver, Phoenix, Las Vegas, LA, the Bay Area, or Boise if you really want to go.
5. Quality higher education: UofU, Westminster, SLCC locally with easy access to BYU, UVU, Weber State, and Utah State University.
6. Health Care: UofU, IHC, HCA, and Iasis as well as smaller facilities are well established in the Salt Lake Valley.
7. Entertainment/Arts: Professional sports like Jazz basketball, baseball, hockey as well as college sports. Ballet West, Capitol Theatre, Sundance Film Festival, multiple nice museums as well as concert venues.
8. Cultural Diversity: The LDS church has fostered some of this as well as probably limited it at the same time. The Salt Lake Valley (and Carbon County to the south) are probably only about 50% LDS now and it is perceptible. Many like to criticize the Church for it's influence even today, but dating back to Brigham Young's planning for the valley in the 1850's to today's majority of legislators and lawmakers, it is part of what has kept SLC desirable and nice as a place to live and raise a family, like it or not.
9. LOTS of accessible public land with reasonable hunting and fishing opportunities.
10. Public transit: UTA is continuing to expand their transit routes along the Wasatch Front making it easier to get around if you do not want to deal with the traffic. You can now take a combination of high speed trains, electric trolleys to get from Provo in the south to Ogden in the north and out to Salt Lake International if you want for a reasonable fee.

Bad:
1. The Wasatch Front has been "discovered". It does not seem that long ago that total population of the state was 1-1.5 million people. Now it is closer to 3 million if not more... much of that is concentrated along the Wasatch Front which extends from Ogden through Salt Lake and down to Provo. It is very densely populated and feels a lot like "Southern California North" at times. The development has brought convenience, variety, and jobs to the area, but not without a price. The freeways have become more congested for longer periods of the day and many, including myself, choose to commute. I commute weekly from up north to work in Utah County where I maintain an apartment. The 80-90 mile drive on congested, sometimes snowy or foggy roads from Prove to Ogden can take their toll on you for sure , but that is the price I pay to have a little breathing room, a trout stream in the back yard, and a beautiful view of the mountains from my deck!!! Many others commute from the Heber Valley, Park City, the Tooele Valley and other locations to find a little "space", peace, or quiet.
2. Winter inversions and overall general air quality. Part of what makes the area so scenic also creates problems with air movement many times during the year, particularly in the winter. The parallel-running mountain ranges run north-south. The Wasatch Front is also bounded by low valley "passes" south of Provo and north just above the Idaho border. Stagnant air gets trapped easily in the basins year round and it takes a major storm system to clean them out. Automobile traffic (increasing), refineries, manufacturing, wood-burning, and livestock all add to the problem! I remember one particularly bad year (1983-84) when it seemed like 3 or 4 weeks went by when you could not see downtown SLC from the UofU up on the hill where I was a student at the time. It was cold, ugly, and quite depressing. The only reprieve was to get up into the mountains where it was sunny and 20-30 degrees warmer!!!
3.There are a lot of hunters and fisherman in Utah competing for a finite amount of public land access. Development has had a lot of negative impact on winter range for mule deer especially, as well as agricultural land for pheasants. However, Elk remain strong as do other upland birds like forest grouse and chuckars. Turkey numbers are growing. Quail, huns, sage hens, and sharptails are limited. Waterfowl hunting can be good at times for a desert... not the midwest however! Fishing is excellent for trout, especially in reservoirs. Streams can be great as well but access can be limited in many instances. There are warm water options as well in multiple reservoirs but once again, it would be hard to compare it to the midwest! Much of the best big game hunting in now found in limited entry tag formats or on private land at a price regulated by supply and demand!!! I find myself wandering off to Wyoming more frequently for antelope, deer, and elk and returning to Kansas or the Dakotas for my pheasant "fix" each fall.
4. Diversity... some struggle more with this than others. I think if you sit inside all the time, dwell on the traffic going through your local LDS church parking lot or temple during the week, and want a liquor store on every corner you might have problems being happy! Get outside, enjoy what the region has to offer, be a good friendly neighbor, and politely tell your neighbors if you don't care to meet the local missionaries and you'll be fine. LDS people have to do the same thing when living outside of Utah and they are in the "minority". Some people are better at this than others.
5. Job market. While the Utah economy is strong for a number of good reasons. The local job market can be a little quirky. Being a "desirable" place to live for many reasons and being predominantly LDS, the job market can be tight and competitive for the best jobs. These same forces tend to drive salaries down compared to elsewhere. My best job professionally, taking everything in to consideration, was in the midwest. I knew this would likely be the case when I came "home". It was worth it to me!!!

Utah is a great place, not perfect, but very nice. I suspect from my limited experience that Minnesota is the same!

Good luck with your choice!!!

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We don't call em Utards for nothing! (I live 38 miles from the Utah border and I'm just joking, mostly.)

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Lots of great info. Thanks to all who have answered.

I am looking at a position at intermountain health. I to would like to have a little space and have a couple horses. It seems as though finding a little space for us and the ponies is a bit difficult.

Any suggestions? I heard to stay away of the west valley area. Why is that?

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Hey lundtroller

I may need to tag along with you to get the pheasant fix. I love watching the dog and the heft of a heavy game bag. To me it doesn't get much better than that

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I've lived in Logan, Ogden, and Tooele. I'm a USU grad. I've also worked in SLC and HAFB. I enjoyed Utah a lot. Logan and Ogden were nice, and I'd live there again if needed. Tooele...meh. The only thing I truly miss about Utah was being a 10 minute drive from Smith & Edwards, and some of the good neighbors/friends I left behind.

If I have my way I'll stay in Idaho. The say Utah sucks...and Idaho blows...so don't get any ideas about Idaho! Kidding!

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If IHC would let you live in Logan and tele-commute, that would be preferable to living in SLC.

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There's decent horse space areas west of Ogden. It's a nice area, but depending on where you were to work for IHC might make that too much of a commute IMO. I lived in Ogden and worked at IHC's corportate office in the middle of downtown SLC. Most days I was able to time my commute right and it wasn't too bad. Other days...ugg.

There horse type areas closer to SLC, but they probably are not cheap. Also, look at Stansbury Park and Grantsville for horse type property. It's not a bad area. Back when I lived there the I-80 commute was one of the best if you worked in SLC. Stansbury to downtown SLC was about 30 minutes.

Also, West Valley had lots of crime and gangs when I lived there.

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I have family in Utah county and I see more backyard horses there than just about anywhere.

Remember that it isn't just SLC itself. More like one giant city from Payson to Brigham city. Not unlike the front range through Colorado.

As populated areas go it is probably pretty good.

The winter weather is all relative. I hear about all their snow and storms, yet their spring comes 4 weeks sooner than Wyoming's plus when it snows the roads are usually bare by afternoon if that long. They salt the roads heavily.

I would say they have a bunch of gun and outdoor shops and are pretty gun friendly.

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Moved here in '79 from west PA...no plans ever to leave......
I live in Podunk Utah...three hrs from SLC...Mormons are OK...I'm not one...just never take only one Mormon fishin'...take at least two..only one will drink all your beer..
Utah is a very beautiful place to live....when you travel..as in most of the open west..it really doesn't take long to get away from crowds/traffic...Utah is an outdoor rec state...whether ski..snow or water...hike..bike....fish...hunt...shooting sports...boat..ATV/UTV...Jeep trails..photography....GeoCache.......you name it..its here....73% public land...I'm retired...so I have more time to just disappear into Utah's back country....
Big game hunting is good....but good tags are not easy to come by...Fishing ?? Lots........Powell...Gorge...Fish Lake....Strawberry...Bear....Utah Lake...Otter Creek.....Scofield....Boulder Mtn's..and streams a plenty...
Weather.....any thing......any time.....low desert....high desert up to 7800'..towering mountains or valleys.....lots of wind !!
I remember the mother of my children once saying...'Utah is a man's world'......she just never appreciated the beauty of nature and what Utah (still) has to offer..good luck in your choices...pics......'out my backdoor' no traffic/concrete/noise/people...did I say I have no plans to leave ??

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The pheasant hunting is limited in Utah for sure. Back in the day, it used to be pretty good in quite a few different areas. Development, predators, and clean farming techniques have pretty much put the pheasants on their heels. I hunt in Cache Valley where I fortunately have access to some family land. Every year, I have to run a few people off who try to sneak on or don't pay attention to signs. I feel bad but even with limited hunting, the 200 or so acres are only good for 2-4 limits(4-8 roosters) over the first week or so of hunting. I take my son and a couple of his or my friends... that's about it. It is a limited resource for sure, in reality a training tune-up for my dog so we don't get embarrassed by my "hard core" friends in Kansas!!!

Good luck with IHC in Utah. They are the "1000 lb. Gorilla" in our state wrt to health care. They are not my favorite. Once owned by the LDS Church, they are now a huge non-profit organization which have the majority of hospitals in the state as well as a large insurance "footprint"/product that directs all of its policy holders to IHC hospitals (surprise!!!!). They unfortunately still benefit from their earlier ownership by the Church politically and can be quite heavy handed at times. I believe they actually stand in the way of competition given their corporate structure and could care less about lowering the cost of health care. They in reality would love to snuff out the competition (HCA, Iasis, and others). I actually am not a fan of corporate medicine in general. All corporations are top heavy and greedy, for the most part just add to the cost of the care provided by those on the front lines. Between the government and corporations, health care in this country is screwed for all and I don't see any end in sight short of catastrophe or a modern day Teddy Roosevelt coming along and castrating the whole mess!

With that off my chest, I suspect if you are employed on the corporate side of things, you will do just fine as I think their employees are fairly satisfied and stable with their market share, as long as the "Gorilla" can continue to stay up on it's feet.

As to horse property and open spaces, they are pretty much gone in the Salt Lake Valley for all practical purposes. The land is just too valuable/expensive. As mentioned earlier, you'd probably have to look at the Payson area south of Provo, Brigham City/Willard area north of Ogden, Tooele valley west of SLC, or the mountain valleys east of Ogden and Provo near Morgan or Heber. I'm guessing cost would kind of go Park City>Heber>Morgan>Payson>Brigham City>Tooele but I could be wrong. Land prices are pretty high now, probably a lot like prime waterfront property in Minnesota. Not that it can't be a good investment for the future, but it will take a little "coin" for sure to get in the game. The bigger question will be whether you want to or can commute. IIRC, IHC's corporate offices are in downtown SLC., or at least they used to be. Their flagship hospital (competitors jokingly call it "DeathStar") is located mid-valley in Murray. Their other "large" hospitals along the Wasatch Front are McKay Dee Hospital in Ogden and Utah Valley Hospital in Provo. If you could be based out of one of these other hospitals, it would make one of these other daily commutes a little more tolerable (Park City or Tooele would work for downtown SLC).

The "best" range in my opinion is down near tikkanut but it is 2.5 hours south of SLC and unfortunately there are no IHC hospitals down in that area. I lived down there as well for about 9 years and I can tell you that I REALLY miss that range!!! Well kept secret in Utah but I suspect it has been "discovered" too!

Lots of good gun stores along the Wasatch Front including Cabelas (soon 2), Scheels, Sportsman's Warehouse (3) and Smith and Edwards as mentioned before, as well as well as Gunnies in Orem and Gallensons in downtown SLC. There are also some smaller chain stores as well as some pretty good pawn shops out there too!

Good luck with your decision!!!




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