Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Off-grid life in the high desert?

I've been looking into getting as distanced as possible from large populations and wildly out of control emboldened government. It's how I want to live my life and I don't care to debate the merits.

I have a lot of experience with cold-weather survival and self-sufficiency, but Northern land is much more expensive. There are small high desert plats that are extremely affordable, because they're in the desert. People do have self-sufficient homesteads in this kind of climate. Solar powered refrigeration, rainwater collection, cisterns, greenhouses, and small livestock such as chickens.

What concerns me is my lack of experience in this kind of climate. Also not having as many meat hunting opportunities. But I could afford a lot more equipment and structures with the much cheaper land. Perhaps more socially interesting on occasion.

Any thoughts/advice/ramblings would be greatly appreciated.

Lots of cheap high desert land on the mesa around Tao’s New Mexico and some pretty scenery in the nearby mountains as long as you don’t mind living in an area full of hippies.

I've seen numerous land deals in NM,AZ, and West Texas that were selling acreage tracts of land comparatively cheap.

The main problems with them as relating to off grid life are:

1) No water. In most places, you cannot find enough water table to drill even deep, expensive water well. Forget a rain catch system. It won't rain enough to support your living. It may help at times, but not an option.

2) Electricity. Getting power of any sort to your property is probably cost prohibitive with either solar/wind, or power poles from the electric supplier.

3) Forget hunting. It's desert, and it takes many, many acres to support even one animal. And the competition for that one animal is unbelievable.

But, by all means, do try it. Many have. I'd say about 2% last more than a year.... Then the land developer forecloses and sells the tract to another optimist.

Solve your water issue first. There's a reason it's sparsely populated. Whether it's a deep well,rainwater collection, or water hauling, your water will determine most everything else including hunting opportunities.

Water. You said rainwater collection. You sure don't want to rely on that. We haven't had enough rain to fill a cistern in the last 3 or 4 years. You need land with a reliable source of water and you MUST have water rights on it. If you don't have the rights, someone else does and when water gets short, they can shut you down. Self sufficiency requires growing crops and they all need water. While annual rainfall might look good, it's typical that it all comes in the winter. It's normal in the high desert to have no rain at all for 6 months at a time. In many desert areas there's actually good ground water but you have to go down quite a ways to get it and then you need more than solar panels to pump it. Here in Idaho you can drill a domestic well without rights but you can't water more than about 1/2 acre from it. Almost all ground water rights are junior to surface rights. If your well starts depleting someone's spring, they can shut you down. It's happening here in Idaho right now.

A cistern in the desert? I've heard some far fetched shirt but this one is out there. Man can't survive in one place without a plentiful water supply.

Ideas on filtering, and treating rain water to drink?

There are Reverse Osmosis(RO) systems out there that don't require power to operate that will handle almost everything you'll run across, but require periodic filter changes.

Not only is water quantity an issue, but water quality. Someone may pick a spot for a well, drill the well, produce all the volume you could ever use, only to discover that it's contaminated with salts (quite common in this part of NM), heavy metals (less common), or hydrocarbons (least common).

I know of one ranch well around here that has water so contaminated with magnesium and potassium salts that one glass (if you could get past the smell of hydrogen sulfide) will give you the greatest colon cleanse you'd ever experience. They pump water from the Pecos River, run it through a particulate filter, water softener, charcoal filter and a RO system to get potable water.

It's best to just find good water first. Everywhere in this part of the world has a Water District Office that can give advise on water availability and quality.

If I were looking for an off-grid location, those folks would be first on my list, before I even talked with a Realtor.

Ed

There are reasons the Indians of the SW were among the poorest in North America.

Are you moving to the desert now too?

I have a buried cistern. It was originally used by the well to store water so the pump only ran when needed. Well was dry when we bought the place, but we plan on storing rainwater in it. The water collected doesn't all need to come from the roof. A ground level collector can easily feed into a buried tank. One inch of rain on an acre is 27,000 gallons. Most is lost to evaporation, transpiration, runoff, and other means.

For the moment, we are looking to collect non-potable water for bathroom use and use jugs of potable water for drinking and cooking. It's not ideal, nor easy, but it is doable.

Here's a reference: Modern Potable Rainwater Harvesting: System Design, Construction, and Maintenance by Daniel M Brown

Too drunk to work? Eat up with The Beetus’ ?
Dead horse blocking the driveway?

Joined yesterday. .gov much?

It's often easier to treat rainwater than well water. If you're lucky enough to have a good well, be thankful. Most groundwater has all manner of different issues needing anything from softening to heavy metals.

Rainwater is already softened, and the quality is more consistent regardless of terrain. The major drawback is consistent supply. Just one dry spell can cause disaster.

Power should be no problem in such a place. Power can solve a lot of problems. You can even make bad water good given the right situation.

Remember. Complete isolation my not be a good thing in some future scenario.

Change your life style expectations. You don't have to be dirty and poor, but changing your lifestyle to avoid living a classic American lifestyle would help a lot.

Best thing to do in my opinion, take off some time from work, load up your gear, head out to an area you are considering and camp out for a few weeks. Reality check.

There are quite a few places in the desert areas where there is quite a bit of precipitation and in good years you can save a lot of water with a water harvesting system, not only from rainfall/snow but also heavy dew. There are "Drip Tank" wildlife waterers in the desert around here that accumulate a surprising amount of water.

Will it be enough for a family? Probably not given the way we use water in this country, but water can be hauled in.

Ed

Exactly

That's a good idea.

Why not just pick someplace that has plenty of water?

There’s stretches of highway with nothing for 3,4 miles even more in Miss, Ala, Arkansas,

Find yourself a place in the Ozarks


I don’t get the enchantment of dust, sand, rocks, cactus, lack of game, no where to fish, no streams.