A Natural Wonder, But Like Living in a Cloud
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11/14/2010
I've lived in Portland for 10 years. It is an amazingly beautiful place to live. The city itself is probably one of the most beautiful in the country; the surrounding environment is beyond compare, with beautiful forests, rivers, lakes, and mountains in nearly every direction. Incredible skiing, hiking, kayaking, paddling, camping, and nature sightseeing everywhere you look. Standing in the middle of downtown Portland, Mt. Saint Helens towers to the north. To the east Mt. Hood - a virtual nature's playground, and the Columbia River Gorge - with it's incredible series of gorgeous waterfalls, is simply stunning. Beyond that, the Hood River Valley is just stunningly beautiful. To the south, the Willamette Valley is an incredibly lush and productive agricultural land - the final destination for pioneers on the famous Oregon Trail. And to the west, the Oregon Coast - certainly one of the most incredibly beautiful coastlines in the country if not the world.
If you LOVE the outdoors, Portland is quite possibly one of the best possible places in the world to live. Hiking, skiing, kayaking, canoeing, camping, hunting, fishing, windsurfing, sailing - it's what we do here, all the time. Oregon is truly a wonder of natural beauty. There is absolutely no doubt about that.
But beware. If you are coming from anywhere outside the Pacific Northwest, the climate could be your undoing. Summer is incredibly beautiful; 80 degrees every day with pure sunshine and low humidity. Every day in summer in Portland is virtually perfect in most years. But alas, the summer is so short, and the "winter" is soooooooo long. Portland doesn't really even have a "winter". While there is incredible snow on "The Mountain" as we call it (Mt. Hood), in Portland it just rains. It rains and rains and rains, almost all the time, from October through May. And let me tell you, it sucks. I've had times here where I literally have not seen the sun for 30 days in a row. During much of this time, you may not even see a single sliver of blue sky, just a pure, dull, monotonous, gray, low hanging blanket of cloud. At times it can feel almost smothering. If you didn't know it from science class, you might think that the sun no longer exists.
I always find it peculiar how conditioned the people who have lived here all their lives have become to this. To them it is perfectly normal because they have never seen anything else. To me, it is absolutely miserable and negates all of Portland's other qualities, which again, are absolutely incredible.
Just so there are no misunderstandings here, let me repeat: I LOVE Portland. I think Oregon as a whole, with it's incredible and unmatched diversity of natural wonders is just about the most amazingly gorgeous place in the world, and yes, if the weather was not what it is I would never in my life consider leaving this incredible place. But the weather really is that bad. It is like living in a cloud. Everything is always wet. You can't rake your leaves because they are always wet, for months on end. I have a woodstove and can never really use it because you can't keep anything dry enough to burn. The "rain" here is different from most places. It rarely pours down in droves like on the east coast or other places where the rain comes down but then things clear up. Instead, it is like living with someone taking a little spray bottle and spraying a mist in your face 24 hours a day. Everything is always wet, and Portlanders jokingly refer to themselves as "web foots" (like a duck). People here ride their bikes in a pouring rain like it was nothing. No one here even uses umbrellas because they're just so used to it. I have seen one umbrella on the streets this week and it's rained every single day of the week. Columbia Sportswear, maker of the famous jackets, is based here and named after the Columbia River. If you live here, you will need one of those. It's like the Portland uniform.
If you are prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), or find you get depressed or have low moods when the weather is cloudy and rainy, Portland is not for you. If you have allergies, Portland is possibly the worst place you could possibly live - just south of Portland is the "Grass Seed Capital of the World", and I have allergy problems here 9 months of the year. Since there is always plenty of rain and the temperatures are very moderate (it is rarely cold enough in Portland even in the winter to even need a true heavy winter coat), it seems like something or other is always in bloom and pollen is everywhere. And of course, mold is just rampant because the conditions are always so perfect for mold growth. Personally, after 10 years, I've just about had it.
If you don't think you would mind the climate, and want to live in one of the most incredibly beautiful places in the country, if not the world, this may be the place for you. But if you're not ready to live in a raincloud for nine months out of the year, don't even consider Portland as a place to live.
Jack | Portland, OR