Slab City: "postapocalyptic vacation zone" living off the grid in CA Badlands

**Moose-Knuckle** · 02-03-12, 20:00

I came across this article detailing a squatters' camp in the CA desert. While I'm sure its inhabits are mostly hippies and outcast the fact that they live there year round off the grid drew me to the story.

http://news.yahoo.com/slab-city-livi...090000272.html

**SIMBA-LEE** · 02-05-12, 15:59

We've seen some of these places in our travels and they don't look like fun places to live to us.

**mallowpufft** · 02-06-12, 10:59

I heard an article on NPR (sadly, they're the only good news that's not on AM radio around here) about this place last week. Sounds like a bunch of hippies and down and out types as well as folks who choose to live on the edges of normal society.

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/24/145645...ifornia-desert

**Irish** · 02-07-12, 01:17

I first read about Slab City quite a few years ago in a magazine article. Here's a 21 minute video made in SC and shows some of the characters who live there, actually pretty interesting. Everything from .Mil vets to tweakers and nutjobs. http://www.5min.com/Video/A-Day-in-Slab-City-517117154

Another interesting documentary that's of a similar nature and available on Netflix is Off the grid: Life on the mesa. Here's the description.

This engrossing documentary examines the unusual and often conflicted lifestyle led by a ragtag collection of teenage runaways, veterans, dreamers and political radicals as they scratch out an existence in the remote New Mexican desert. The residents may share a vision for a new way of life, but filmmakers Randy and Jeremy Stulbert don't shy away from the collective's underside, such as the steps taken to stop a series of robberies on the mesa.

**krisjon** · 02-07-12, 12:37

Originally Posted by Irish

I first read about Slab City quite a few years ago in a magazine article. Here's a 21 minute video made in SC and shows some of the characters who live there, actually pretty interesting. Everything from .Mil vets to tweakers and nutjobs. http://www.5min.com/Video/A-Day-in-Slab-City-517117154

Is the guy with the snakes the brother of Carl the greenskeeper (Bill Murray) from Caddyshack?

**Irish** · 02-07-12, 13:06

Interesting article pertaining to similar folk or extremists if you prefer the FBI's definition. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...81600V20120207

**ST911** · 02-07-12, 13:09

Researching and exploring FUDS is a hobby of mine, and it's mostly sad to see what they become. Then you have places like slab city, which is positively begging to have the USMC retake Camp Dunlap and evict the squatters.

**SeriousStudent** · 02-07-12, 23:08

Originally Posted by Skintop911

....... Then you have places like slab city, which is positively begging to have the USMC retake Camp Dunlap and evict the squatters.

Nothing like a good work-up, prior to going on a WestPac.

**MookNW** · 02-07-12, 23:29

Different coast, but there is a documentary called "dark days" which follows a bunch of folks wh squat in the NYC subway system underground. Great film with a bitchin soundtrack.