Heather Brenner

in order to safely bury a container, you basically have to build a root cellar around it.

Cadastral has its uses, as does Google Earth. OnX is still worth the money, IME. Do NOT expect Google Maps to have road names correct, or to pinpoint addresses, in remote areas. Accuracy gets pretty sketchy in remote areas, unless you have actual coordinates

I live off-grid in western Montana, at 6000', in one of the neighborhoods that will probably pop up for people looking for land. As someone else said, off-grid land at higher altitudes is unlikely to have flat spaces till you make them. A friend with a road grader flattened us a spot to build our house. We have flattened other spots with our backhoe. A backhoe or skid steer is really pretty essential equipment to building off-grid. If you cannot buy your own, make good friends with your neighbors who are so equipped! Barter is alive and well, so trading use of equipment for something else is very possible.

Off-grid and up high, there are plenty of springs, so wells are not very common. Our water is piped to our house from a spring about 200' uphill, gravity fed, clear and COLD!

DO NOT expect realtors to know the nitty gritty of winter access in such areas. TALK to your potential neighbors. For example, my neighborhood is technically seasonal access only, but, in the 10 years we have been here, the amount of plowing taking place, and the reliability with which it happens, have increased steadily. Instead of snowmobiling the 3 miles closest to home all winter, last year, as was the case for years, we snowmobiled about a mile for part of winter, not at all for the rest, for example. The rest was plowed by neighbors with equipment. (Our neighborhood roads are private, not County owned. We pay for maintenance via a grazing lease with a neighboring ranch)

In my area, Starlink has been available since June of 2021. My hubs is a telecommuting computer programmer, so internet service is necessary to our bread and butter. In the decade we have been here, we have used cell service, with a signal booster, HughesNet, ViaSat, and now, Starlink, which blows the doors off of the rest. We use our phones on wifi over Starlink, as well.

If you put such a tour together, we would be interested in it. We are near Helmville, planning to build an RMH in the spring

Buy a thick thrift store wool sweater and wash it and dry it with the regular laundry, so it shrinks up real good. . You may want a couple or three layers of that per insole, just hand baste them together with needle and thread. That said, sheepskin shoe inserts are not very expensive on amazon

5G isn't truly necessary for working remotely, even at a high end IT job.  We live off-grid in western Montana.  Achieving 4G cell service here requires a cell signal booster, so we use one of those, plus we have satellite internet, because reliable internet is necessary to our bread and butter.  Between the two, my husband works his Silicon Valley IT job from our Montana mountainside.  The plan is to pay the place off and get other major, one time expenditures out of the way, while developing other income streams, because he has been working IT for over 20 years and wants out of it--or maybe part time, as a very expen$ive consultant.

We know that we want to keep dairy animals, and will eventually want at least one cow, but are wondering whether or not we should start out with a dairy goat or two first, to get our feet wet. We have 40 acres that is mostly pasture.

IMO, about the most energy efficient and water efficient way to clean clothes is a wringer washer and clotheslines. My current washer is a 60 year old Maytag that was $5 at an auction. You can adjust agitating time and water use infinitely, to your own needs. My usual routine is to wash the next load in the rinse water from the last load, starting with the light clothes. Others wash all the loads in the same water, then rinse them all in the same water, but our stuff is generally to dirty for that to work well (we have 3 kids under 8, and we are building a homestead. Dirt is our constant companion. . )
Then, dry on the line. In freezing weather, I dry stuff that is needed soon on racks inside, the rest on the line outside. A pair of the really cheap fit-everyone winter gloves under a pair of rubber dish gloves does a fair job of allowing clothes hanging without frostbit fingers.

If you are hungry a bit east of Missoula, Parker's Restaurant in Drummond serves local beef, as 125 or so different kinds of burgers. I don't know what else is local/organic, but the couple that run it are a chef from San Francisco and his wife that got bitten by the Montana bug. Yummy burgers, some of the best homemade fries, ever, and friendly people.