u/Cultural-Taro2449

If my ultimate passion is trailrunning and ultramarathons and thus need to live in or very near the mountains to be happy (and I also like mountain biking, snowboarding, fly fishing, etc), and I don’t get into Stanford, UC Berkeley, or UCLA, and not Harvard or Yale either, is it better to go to a school like University of Washington, UC Davis, UC Boulder, U of Utah, etc, or another lower T14?

I looked this question up but all the answers are several years old and the economy has changed alot (for the worse) since Epstein’s best friend retook office again.

Cities I’ve visited, loved, and would be happy to live in:

Denver/Boulder
Seattle
San Francisco
Salt Lake City
Portland
Sacramento, but this is the least desirable bc it gets brutally hot in the summer and I hate the heat

Been researching and following wildfires the last couple nights before bed and have come away pretty depressed about the current situation, especially how they’re directly affecting this sport that we all love so much (not that its more important than the lives, communities, and homes affected, to be clear).

We’ve seen Oregon Cascades 100 cancelled 2x in a row, Hood Hundred, Ouray 100, and Fat Dog 120 cancelled this year (I’m sure there’s more). Hardrock 100 and Leadville 100 rerouted, Run Rabbit Run 100 in danger of cancellation, probably rerouting at the very least. Just a really depressing onslaught against some of our best and most storied ultra races this summer :(.

I’m only 24 years old, so to those of you that have been in this “game” called life for longer than I, have the wildfires always been like this and I’m overreacting? Or is my doomer outlook actually the correct one? And to any scientists or researchers who know a lot more about climate change and environmental systems than I, I would love to hear some “positive” takeaways from all this, how things could get better going forward, etc.

We’ve already seen the future of skiing this past winter, eventually there just simply won’t be snow one day unless snowmaking technology rapidly improves. I love this sport more than anything, I don’t even want kids just so I can train my whole life at the volume/time commitment and intensity I do now (and bc I don’t want them to die in future water wars). I just really really hope this sport isn’t also being put to an inevitable sword down the line too.

“Odds are about 1-in-3 that mega-earthquake will hit Pacific Northwest in next 50 years, scientists say”

“The OSU professor is convinced that the Pacific Northwest is at risk for an earthquake that could meet -- or exceed -- the power of seismic events that took place in Chile, as well as Haiti. If a magnitude-9 earthquake does strike Cascadia, he says, the ground could shake for several minutes. Highways could be torn to pieces, bridges may collapse, and buildings would be damaged or even crumble. If the epicenter is just offshore, coastal residents could have as little as 15 minutes of warning before a tsunami could strike.”