I've been emailing back and forth with B_ and got permission to post some of it in the forums. Lots of good stuff.
Concerning Oregon, work is very hard to get there even in the best of times. If you can't hack a lot of cloudy, rainy weather, best to stick with southern Oregon-- basically Jackson and Josephine counties. The winter weather up to just north of Grants Pass is like northern California weather, from about Roseburg north, it's very rainy and cloudy all winter.
If you want to look for property, or just get an idea, check out Realtor.com or better yet Wells Fargo's REO website, Pasreo.com. That's my old business from Oklahoma way back (80s and 90s), buying foreclosed houses.
Oregon has a 9% income tax, more or less a flat tax on any income above $6000 or so. No sales tax.
Oregon certainly is less bureaucratic than California. If you locate in an isolated valley (the Illinois Valley, Cave Junction, was where I lived) you can pretty much do what you want to do. In the cities, things are a little of a pain in the ass, but not like California.
Look up Cave Junction, Oregon just for fun--it's the strangest place I've ever lived, but also one of the most interesting. As far as I could tell, the main cash business there was growing dope, although it isn't nearly so well known as Mendocino, and it's off the beaten path. Nobody admitted growing to me, but I knew it was all around, although for me it was never a problem.
If you are looking for wildlife, hiking, rivers, creeks, mountains, etc, you can't do much better than Oregon. East of the Cascades the winters are much colder and more snowy, west of the Cascades, mostly rain and just a little snow in the winter (except in the coast range, where it snows a lot).
As far as mountains go, I went hiking every day when I could in Cave Junction, dozens of different trails in the mountains. You can get the mountains in that part of Oregon without having to shovel snow, own a 4 wheel drive, or put up with low temperatures (the lowest temp is usually in the 20s, rarely below 30 in the winter). It's also easy to go for a visit from California. I would have stayed there, but I can't hack a lot of cloudy winter weather (seasonal depression).
If you get a place with a few acres, you can usually cut up dead trees for firewood and use a wood stove. Many of the cities in Oregon have burning restrictions in the winter on wood stoves, but in the boonies that isn't an issue. In rural parts of Oregon you usually don't have to smog your car either.