I'll second what OR had to say. The quality of a graduate program is far more important than its location. I am an alumni of the University of Washington; both for my bachelors and my graduate education. I went there for two reasons: first because in my field it was one of the top undergraduate and graduate programs in the nation and second because I was a resident of Washington (the state, not Sodom on the Potomac) and thus did not have to pay out-of-state tuition. By happy circumstance, some of the finest mountaineering in the nation is located in the State of Washington and I took full advantage of it. But, it can certainly take a bit of time to get out of Seattle and into the mountains although the peaks around Snoqualmie Pass are not much more than an hour away.