The region may have the feel of a neo-hippie reservation, but who other than the free spirited are going to move into the derelict hamlets, and ring Tibetan bells to chase out the ghosts and surprise the squirrels?
Many newcomers, having intended to settle, find the reality of mountain life too harsh in winter, and so adopt a transient life style; staying only in summer. Some come extremely ill prepared while rugged folk (including survivalists) tend to make a better go of it. By mixing clay with water and goat dung, they build summer adobie shelters, insulating themselves from the treacly heat of summer. Many have joined self-sufficient communities whose mores the normals primarily observe with a mean hearted suspicion. Those hippies – chilling in the shade listening to the Thelonious Monk – represent an unacknowledged exoticism, and provoke in the normals an attitude of disdain. “Frackin’ hippies & their orgiastic revelries.” Frackin’ used as a profanity, and not in any literal sense. Hippies are most certainly not exponents of shale gas.