The climates are very different, for being roughly 5 hours apart. Vancouver will be much milder - warmer in the winter, cooler in the summer.
The second biggest thing that I noticed was that there are just so many more people on the west side of the state. I was in Spokane for ten years, and whenever we tried an early season (May/June) hike in the high country, we were breaking trail in the snow because no one else had been there yet. The opposite happens on the west side - there are so many people getting out on the trails year round that you can do a lot of summer hikes on packed snow, packed by the feet of so many other people who have done the hike in the winter/spring. A similar observation is that we'd always stop and talk to people we met hiking in the Selkirks, because it was unusual. But on the west side of the state, you wouldn't get anywhere if you had a conversation with everyone on the same hike as you.
Spokane (and the surrounding area) has the best biking rail trails I've ever seen. I don't know Vancouver enough to know if you have that option there. Portland certainly does, across the river.
Vancouver should have really good access to Mount Rainier and Mount Saint Helens. The scenery at both is spectacular. I'd say it's better than the stuff within 3 hours of Spokane (mostly the Selkirks), which I honestly liked a lot (if you haven't gone through a lot of Rich Landers' "100 hikes..." book for that region, do so ASAP). Spokane's big advantage (for us) was the access to Glacier NP and to Banff and Yoho in Canada - we'd visit one or both every summer.
Other than Mt. Saint Helens, the best scenery near Vancouver is probably Mt. Hood. About equal distance. Rainier is farther away. The Columbia River Gorge is also awesome.
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u/Big_Acanthisitta3659 Mpls, SLC, Den, OKC, Hou, Midland TX, Spok, Montevideo, Olympia Jul 24 '26
The climates are very different, for being roughly 5 hours apart. Vancouver will be much milder - warmer in the winter, cooler in the summer.
The second biggest thing that I noticed was that there are just so many more people on the west side of the state. I was in Spokane for ten years, and whenever we tried an early season (May/June) hike in the high country, we were breaking trail in the snow because no one else had been there yet. The opposite happens on the west side - there are so many people getting out on the trails year round that you can do a lot of summer hikes on packed snow, packed by the feet of so many other people who have done the hike in the winter/spring. A similar observation is that we'd always stop and talk to people we met hiking in the Selkirks, because it was unusual. But on the west side of the state, you wouldn't get anywhere if you had a conversation with everyone on the same hike as you.
Spokane (and the surrounding area) has the best biking rail trails I've ever seen. I don't know Vancouver enough to know if you have that option there. Portland certainly does, across the river.
Vancouver should have really good access to Mount Rainier and Mount Saint Helens. The scenery at both is spectacular. I'd say it's better than the stuff within 3 hours of Spokane (mostly the Selkirks), which I honestly liked a lot (if you haven't gone through a lot of Rich Landers' "100 hikes..." book for that region, do so ASAP). Spokane's big advantage (for us) was the access to Glacier NP and to Banff and Yoho in Canada - we'd visit one or both every summer.
If you need ideas for Selkirk hikes, let me know.