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.

First, do a rain dance......

For the last 150 years, minimum, people have roamed the desert trying to make a living in it, including the most unlikely places. Every place has been evaluated, and just about every place has seen homesteading attempts. There are abandoned homestead, even abandoned towns all over the high desert in these parts. And most of those were abandoned in higher rain periods than we are seeing now.

If you are so stone poor that you can't buy a little better tract of land than pure desert, work a second job for a few years and upgrade. There are still a lot of old abandoned mining claims and in holdings in the mountains that are available. With curretn solar power technology, they are much more liveable than they have ever been.

Next he'll be promoting the shot.

We have lots of "cedar rats" around here, very few make it more than a year. Most cant make it 6 months. They think it would be cheap to live in the bonnies but it is not.

Most have to make 2 or 3 trips a week to town for water. There are 2 pay by the gallon water stations. They have traliers with one or two tanks on it. You know water is a problem when the ranchers have to haul trom town.
The county requires a septic system....
Very expensive to get reliable power.
The dirt roads get very rough when there is high traffic on them. Kills vehicles and lots of tires.
Roads turn into a muddy mess when it rains makes getting to town difficult and sometimes impossible when it floods.
Lately the meth monsters have found it fairly easy to raid the home/cabin/RV/tent when folks leave. They take anything not bolted down, sometimes the bolts dont stop them.
No fire/EMS service
Can get very cold in the winter and hotter than hades in the summer.
Predators WILL get to small livestock.

It is not impossible, the old time homesteaders did it, but without reliable water your chances are slim. A person needs a written plan and adequate money to make a decent go of it.

Mud, oh s*t I could never live there, but then on second thought mud and floods could be a good thing in the desert.

You are looking at the wrong end of the country, if you can't afford the mountains out there. There are plenty of hollers in Appalachia and the southeastern US that a man could more or less disappear into, live on squirrels and bluegill and sweet potatoes, and only go into a small town whenever it suited him.

Hard to survive on 2-3 inches of precipitation a year.

High desert can be Washington to Arizona! More information on where, or everything is speculation!

Are you a realtor, or trying to sell land? Your absolutely right, the only drawback around middle Georgia is the summer heat and negros. The Georgia - North Carolina line due east a 100 miles or due west for 500 miles a person could make a pretty good go of living off-grid and not just trying to survive.

That is so true!

I lived for almost four years in a golf community here along New Mexico's Turquoise Trail (Rt 14) between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, that had relatively unpleasant water piped in at some expense from over ten miles away. It was a pretty location but with many issues besides the water. Later, the lease owner wanted me to buy it, so I looked for something better and closer to town.

Instead, I found a very special place on a quite hilly five acres, just a minute off Interstate 40 and Route 66, backing up against a national forest, where a wealthy doctor had built himself a pretty fancy log cabin hunting lodge 75 years ago.

Best of all, since it was on the eastern slope of the Sandia Mountains, which caught all the rain as clouds came over the top from Albuquerque, it had an arroyo running through it, two rock ponds and a well with its clean water source only 18 feet deep! Talk about a rarity! They can be found, but one has to look for them.

Norm

Hahahaha!

You fugger.


Dead horse.

Do you own the water rights to collect the rainwater? This is going on in OR right now. People can't have rain barrels because someone else has the rights to all the runoff from their property. It doesn't matter how long your cistern has been there. It's who owns the water rights on the land that matters. If this western drought continues, many people are going to get bit when the rights holders send in the sheriff to shut down their water collecting systems. It's not theirs to collect.

Many desert homes were broken off from ranches that sold off land that wasn't good for grazing. They didn't sell the water rights along with the land.

I understand the legal requirements here, but the sad part is I doubt many of those ranchers have an effective way to retain the water runoff from heavy rains. I mean it's pretty obvious the most effective retention system is immediate capture with retention in an enclosed cistern which greatly limits losses. If the home owner uses the water it is almost certainly discharged back into the water table through drain field leaching or garden watering.

I don't think people are thinking very deeply about this subject.

Slappy Hampster will be along shortly to tell us how he used to do it....

if you spend much time in these areas you quickly realize the same now as then people put up homesites based on available water in the area. much of the natural springs are private with BLM land surrounding them. I come across some of these homesteads from time to time. some are active, some were dreamed of and never happened, ie they took out stuff to the land to do it, and many are long abandoned. none of which is a way I would want to live. I also have a friend who sold his house bought land in remote utah to setup a homestead. I haven't talked to him in a while but he quickly burned through all, most, or even beyond that in cash he had set aside to build his homestead. meanwhile the 2 houses he owned in the city have doubled in value over the last 3 years, but he sold them to move and doesnt' have the equity.

the problem is the same problem that has always been out there. earning a living. his finances basically dried up due to remoteness, and his being busy trying to build things himself. I think he basically lives in a shack that is partially complete. this is why its not more common, the old timers were better suited for life out there, they could raise a few animals and eek out a living but it was still tuff. nearly everyone with enough means to make it work, will not trade their life. Instead I would recommend just having a place to go, but not plan on living there long term.

Where are you currently located?

A major problem with the high desert is not the climate, but that you are only a tank of gas away from hordes of fruit and nuts. If I were a young man again, I would take a serious look at the Aleutians.Seriously, all the reasons people will say you are crazy is exactly why it is an awesome spot in a troubled world.

I can't see living in the middle of nowhere where it's so hot in the summer all you do is camp out in a trailer and so cold in the winter that you do the same.

I Also think you're better off just getting out of the city, live around like minded people with similar beliefs so that you can setup a relationship with them of mutual defense and trade.

Reads like the tin foil hat brigade is out in force. Slow day at Infowars, fellas?
I, for one, enjoyed the topic and concept, but around here no good deed goes unpunished.

Agree with the non-conspiratorial comments here.......water, or lack of it, is *the* issue.

Lots of good advice here.

97 in the shade here in Podunk right now.........

sticky 23% RH

92 here with 70% RH and more rain predicted for later today.

Low desert environment.

You're missing something here. Heavy rains? We haven't had a rain over 1/2" in several years. 1" rains are a pipe dream. Runoff is almost nonexistant. There is no excess water to fill a cistern or pond. This area gets 10" of water a year, mostly in the winter. Most of it soaks and and the soil is bone dry by June. This area is great for agriculture but it's all from irrigation from mountain snowfall. Without that, nothing can grow here but sagebrush. You need to find land with a good strong spring or creek and have the rights to use them. You won't get it by storing rainfall when there is none.

66 degrees and overcast with plenty of water here in mid Michigan.

Ole GTC could add some of his wisdom to this thread if he was still with us.

I miss Greg’s posts.

Never been in a desert, lived in the Appalachians all my life. Quite a few people around here live what I'd call a low profile life. They do a little seasonal or handyman work usually for cash or barter. Some have a little farm or at least enough land to put out a garden. Between the the free medical /dental clinic and the food bank they get by. Mountain land without power or county water can be relatively affordable.

Podunk is in central Utah @ 6K' elevation

The San Rafael Swell to the east is wide open high desert...empty & unforgiving

Current temps are rather unusual and unwanted to say the least

Summer nights commonly drop to low 50's...but not lately

This higher desert country can be as cold as a whale digger's azz

Or as hot as the gates of hell......now.......

It's easy to head out there and just disappear for the day.....or two...just bring water

https://www.motortrend.com/features/2110-black-dragon-canyon/

I dig whales. They're supercool!

Thanks for the really informative replies. I don't know how this thread would benefit .gov but I commend the suspicion.

I'm currently in Wisconsin and I haven't encountered any like-minded people. None. Lots of people, here and elsewhere, talk a big game but will never live a self-sufficient life. Even the Amish here. It's a rare breed that will.

I'm seeking high elevation and workable natural resources, but plentiful resources is obviously a better situation. I was looking at northern NM. Southern Colorado was looking beautiful until I looked into the absolutely insane regulations and restrictions on land "ownership." Too high a neighboring population anyway.

My dream was/is remote Alaska but getting there and getting set up would eat much of my savings. I would also probably be completely alone for the rest of my time.

Weather patterns are changing, and will be dramatically different in the decades to come. Everything will be. Calm and stable periods on this planet are the exception, not the rule. Trying to get set up ahead of that in anticipation. Political and economic chaos right now are only the beginning in anticipation and are a waste of time to concern oneself with.

We're entering the cyclical ~12k year disaster. Solar flares during this recurring period of weakened magnetic field will take out the modern electric age (the 1859 Carrington event was just the beginning of the current weakening of the Earth's magnetic field and the accompanying polar excursion we're observing now.) People and government will get really ugly, then survivors will adapt. I don't plan on participating in that.

The galactic cloud that causes this event (and that affects the entire solar systems, observable right now across our own and neighboring systems) will eventually lead to a micronova of our sun. The energy, heat, ions, and material impacts will be catastrophic. This has all happened repeatedly. Low elevations of earth will flood as the earth tilts 90° just as it always has. The poles and equator will be much different than they were (the magnetic poles are drifting and accelerating already). Some ancient religious stories are based in truth. This is also evident by alternating layers of polar and tropical fossils in the polar regions.

People will survive; they always do. But not many. I'm in my mid-30s and going at things alone, I only hope to make it past everybody's initial freaking out. A lot of what will happen past that isn't in anybody's control, aside from being in a strategic location. Will be quite the experience though. So we have that going for us, which is nice.

A long post to say that I believe the current dry areas on/directly East of the Rockies will become more moderate.

I don't expect a lot of intellectual responses *on any forum, but the fraction that will be might be very helpful and enjoyable on my rare day off.

What a nut case, you have found fertile ground here 😂

OK...........

Iffin U do come to Utah......

Bring UR own water and some sort of shade.....

Oh yea....welcome to the fire........

Like Travis always says,........now GFY

Good

For

You.............

Your second post was more entertaining than your first.

One of the best things you could do for survival is have a family.

Here ya go. [img]https://cdn.thinglink.me/api/image/520681531757297664/1240/10/scaletowidth[/img]

With respect, I was formerly the president of the county astronomical association and you don't know what you're talking about. Micronova my ass.

But...if you're from Wisconsin, why not go off the grid up by Rhinelander or on the UP?

Good Lord.

And to think I wasted my time with a serious answer.

Water can be hauled in outhouse, or compacting toilet.

Former county level? That's big time. Cite your claims and I'll listen. Won't hold my breath though.

Wisconsin is nearly at sea level and surrounded by water. I'm looking for something better anyway

Now wabigoose is hauling water in his toilet, this just keeps getting better

wabi should be out bailin' hay

THIS

Friend Happy Camper on here. He’s a giant in the field.

The OP needs to read him some Bracken so he will be able to keep up with the camper...and wabi.



mike r

Yes, the avg iq has been dropping for decades. No surprise, and it doesn't hurt my feelings. Enjoy

It was 108* at 5000' ASL here today, how high are you going?


mike r

If it's just now dawning on you that you need to become more self sufficient and put away supplies and food for when things go south, you have a lot of catching up to do.

It's never too late though.

Forget the desert. The desert kills people like you for grins. Seriously.

You may want to rethink Alaska though.

Too bad crossfireoops isn't around any more to give you a really good, multi-page reply.

Check out this thread!

top of the world baby

It just dawned on me...

'Flave is like a Polish Kanye.

#TooKool

For a trial run to see if the desert is for you check out the “burning man” event and see if you can hook up with a hippie chick that already has her own place.

If the rain on roofs is of no value then why on earth would the ranchers sic the sheriff on anybody.

First, advice is to find Jane before leaving.

Second, dude, you are working in a different time scale. Human calamity will happen long before natural calamity.

Rhinelander? LOL

Huh?

Is that Cousin Eddie's place?

Charlie Brown’s yucca Christmas tree

haha

Does anyone have a link to a pdf of Jose Argüelles' Earth Ascending?

I feel sorry for him most of the time, sincerely....

I don't think the compacting toilet has been invented yet.

Just now dawning on me? No. You misunderstand. And that's ok.

When you say "people like me" I assume you mean Northern folks. No offense taken. Why, then, rethink Alaska? And why the wink emoji?

not to put too fine a point on it, but

Cheap Land = Cheap Neighbors

take that any way you care to, just an observation.

I think you meant Messiah




LoL

🦫

There's no Polish messiah.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

In theory living remotely off the grid seems doable and not that hard until reality slaps you silly. Schit always breaks down when its really hot or really cold. If you get injured and you're two hours from a mediocre hospital and have spotty cell service you're phugged. Better hope you have good normal dependable neighbors because that would be one of my top considerations living remotely off the grid.

Buy a cheap travel trailer when you retire and camp for three months remotely and see how you like it. Tow the trailer out to an area in October and spend a few winter month in the snow..

Make sure to take a few female sheep with you. For your pleasure.. you will probably need it out there

You're missing the whole dang point. It's not the rancher's water, either. There are stream flow rights owned by the state that have to be filled before the rancher gets anything. Hydro rights. Downstream irrigation rights. Downstream domestic consumption rights. All senior to "the rancher's" rights. Your collection right would be right behind all the others, and you can't collect a drop until all the others are filled.

It doesn't matter who does it the most efficient; Phoenix, Vegas and LA are going to get all their water before you get a single drop.

akes money ...to leave the rest behind ....just sayin

We had a discussion about that a while back. Seems that people in OR got the word that they can't use barrels to collect rain water coming off their roofs. The downstream rights specify that they get a certain amount of water from a creek and they weren't getting it. The creek water comes from a watershed, all the land drained by the creek. Roofs are part of the watershed. Who owns the land is irrelevant. What matters is who owns the senior water rights.Until the senior right owner gets 100% of his water, no one else gets any. It's not divvied up between them. That's the way water rights were handled when the west was settled and it's still that way today.

This has been a really interesting conversation. I had naively assumed that desert areas were largely unregulated. I also didn't know about the potential bad water quality another member mentioned earlier.

I've read in some places, rainwater collection is limited to 100-200 gallons, etc. If drought conditions make things worse, that could all become a huge mess soon. Creative harvesting of water was the only feasible way I saw to become self-sufficient in certain areas.

Remote Alaska it is. No shortage of resources. In the right areas, no HOA. No covenants. No property taxes. Effectively no local government.

The water rights issue has the potential to be as big an issue as described in this post. Lots of attorneys have made careers out of arguing water rights especially in arid areas. We have cattle on about 10,000 acres of state grazing land. You have to get a permit from the state to build a fence or do any kind of improvements. We cleaned out three dirt tanks two years ago. State land guy told us you can clean them out and make them deeper but you cannot make them any bigger. Courts have determined the rights to runoff belong to the tribes and you cannot impede it. We asked how they would know since they never come out to look at the property. He said they monitor satellite images.

In the West, Whisky is for drinking, Water is for fighting over.

You seem to know about Dolan Springs AZ!

Outside of what appears to be some creosote bush..........................







that could be my 'hood!

You mean that thing with the thick plastic lined paper bag in the kitchen, next to the sink/dishwasher ain't a toilet?

Damn, thing can hold a weeks worth at least. No need for a septic system either, just toss it in the Dumpster behind the liquor store.

Pee off the porch though, them bags ain't that waterproof.

Add a little kitty litter and your golden.

Dolan Springs, gateway to fabulous Meadview!

i do

friend of mine who passed not long ago had a ranch on the desert between congress and aquila. family on it since the 30's. i had hunted dove on one of his tanks since the 50's. met him one day and thanked him as usual for letting me hunt there. he said enjoy it while you can. seemed the windmill energy guys were talking a bout putting windmills u p, eventually when up to become another ranchers problem in nevada. if it would have went in, no trespassing, no entry into all that land. I commented what about your tank, that is deeded property, worth bucks in the desert. well, not really. BLM comes in and diverts water upstream so no more water, and then buys you out.
welcome to america.
course i could mention a gold mine in the same general area. been in the family for about 100years. hadn't been worked due to the water coming out of it. also worth money in the desert. owner died, and heir was a couple of days late filing paper work, so BLM got it.
somebod y mentioned phoenix getting all the water. keep in mine indians get first claim on it.

Yeah, and the two are about as far apart economically as Beverly Hills and East LA.