The Last Frontier ~~~ Homesteaders on the margins of America

The San Luis Valley in Colorado looks as it did two hundred years ago. Blanca Peak, at 14,345 feet, 4th-highest in the Rockies, overlooks a vast openness. Blanca, named for the snow that covers its summit most of the year, is visible from almost everywhere in the valley and is considered sacred by the Navajo. The land is not free but it is cheap—some of the cheapest in the United States. In many respects, a person could live here in this vast, empty space like the pioneers did on the Great Plains—except you’d have a truck instead of a mule, and some solar panels, possibly even a cell-phone signal. And legal weed. If you are on disability or receive veterans’ benefits, you might even get by without having a job, though if you have no income, things can get tricky, especially when winter comes around.