Our World: Altamont Pass and its windmills

We were driving from San Jose to Mountain House, CA and we had just passed Livermore when windmills took over the scene in an otherwise dry landscape. The area...

We were driving from San Jose to Mountain House, CA and we had just passed Livermore when windmills took over the scene in an otherwise dry landscape.

The area — a part of the Diablo Mountain Range — is home to Altamont Pass Wind Farm, which is said to be one of the oldest wind farms in the country and one of the largest wind farms in the world.

These turbines can be seen as you drive Interstate 580 between Livermore and Tracy, CA.

Some of the pictures here in this post were taken from 580 and others from the less busier roads in the vicinity, like Altamont Pass Road.

 Also from the area:

Linking to the meme–
Our World Tuesday

http://ourworldtuesdaymeme.blogspot.in/2014/11/our-world-10-november-2014.html

For pictures from the road, Like/Follow Tipsy From The Trip on  Facebook.
Come, Trip with us. 😉 

Share
Categories
Scenic Routes

Dee (Divya): Blogger, Freelance Content Writer & Content Strategist. | 📸 Loves tripping.🛣 Tipsy from every TRIP!😬🫣 | 🏞Follow > for intoxicating virtual trips!🥂😉
21 Comments on this post.
  • Prasad Np
    12 November 2014 at 5:33 am
    Leave a Reply

    One day 99% of our energy will come from Wind and Solar…that would be the day.

    Nice pictures BTW….

    • dNambiar
      12 November 2014 at 6:27 am
      Leave a Reply

      May that day be here soon.
      Thanks, Prasad. That was quite a sight. 🙂

  • R Niranjan Das
    12 November 2014 at 5:41 am
    Leave a Reply

    Looks beautiful and well captured, Divya. Though on a smaller scale, you can see something similar while driving south of Thirunelveli.

    • dNambiar
      12 November 2014 at 6:30 am
      Leave a Reply

      Oh yeah? Cool sight, alle?
      I'd never seen this many windmills, I'm sure. It was pretty exciting.
      Thanks, Nomad. 🙂

  • Molly
    12 November 2014 at 10:28 pm
    Leave a Reply

    I can't decide if they things are beautiful or an ugly scar on the landscape

    Mollyxxx

    • dNambiar
      13 November 2014 at 7:42 am
      Leave a Reply

      I know what you mean. That day, it was such a welcome sight for me. The landscape was so dry for miles together. And these man-made structures seemed to bring some life to the scene.

      Thank you for the visit, Molly.

  • Rahul Bhatia
    17 November 2014 at 4:11 am
    Leave a Reply

    A fascinating sight Divya! I remember having seen hunderds of them enroute to Prague this summer on a train ride from Budapest:)

    • dNambiar
      17 November 2014 at 12:08 pm
      Leave a Reply

      You should put up those pics. Do we have the travel story, yet.
      I'll come by your blog in a bit.

  • Indrani
    5 December 2014 at 5:53 am
    Leave a Reply

    The third shot is mind blowing! I hope to come across a similar scene some day.
    And I totally agree with Prasad here.

    • dNambiar
      5 December 2014 at 5:57 am
      Leave a Reply

      🙂
      Thank you, Indrani.
      Yeah, we could do with more of these. 🙂

  • rachnacooks
    5 December 2014 at 7:32 am
    Leave a Reply

    Yes, I remember seeing these enroute to Livermore. We were going to Livermore temple back then. 🙂 Lovely shots, Divya.
    http://rachnaparmar.com

    • dNambiar
      5 December 2014 at 11:44 am
      Leave a Reply

      Yeah, that's the place. There are several smaller roads that pass by this Wind farm and there are some really good views of the turbines from there.
      Thanks a ton, Rachna. 🙂
      Have a great weekend.

  • wanderingjatin
    5 December 2014 at 8:57 am
    Leave a Reply

    Amazing. All those swarms of windmills look so neatly packed! I have had minor lucks spotting some on my rides, always feels good 🙂

    • dNambiar
      5 December 2014 at 11:46 am
      Leave a Reply

      I'd never seen this many before this. And it was quite fascinating.
      Sometime, Jatin. I hope you get to see more turbines than these. Here's wishing you all the luck. 🙂

      Hey, maybe you should ride on the route that Niranjan speaks of. 🙂

  • Mridula
    5 December 2014 at 9:13 am
    Leave a Reply

    Such strong leading lines in the third shot! Some of these 'rules' of photography do work!

    • dNambiar
      5 December 2014 at 11:51 am
      Leave a Reply

      We were just driving through and when I saw this, I had to take some pictures from the car. I hadn't noticed the leading lines, really :D. It was only when I was looking through the images later that I found this picture standing out.
      But yeah, leading lines do make pictures very attractive.
      Thanks a ton, Mridula. 🙂
      Happy weekend to you.

  • magiceye
    5 December 2014 at 11:32 am
    Leave a Reply

    The 3rd pic s beautiful

    • dNambiar
      5 December 2014 at 5:10 pm
      Leave a Reply

      Thank you so much, Magiceye. 🙂

  • Kokila Gupta
    5 December 2014 at 2:15 pm
    Leave a Reply

    The pics are nice but I found the windmills I saw during our visit to Kerela more beautiful…. … may be because they were in the midst of lush greenery unlike here… though I guess in reality it must have been nice to see the huge fans ….. and leaving the aesthetics behind, we can't argue about the benefits 🙂

    • dNambiar
      5 December 2014 at 5:15 pm
      Leave a Reply

      I'm sure it would look best when paired with greenery. I hope you have pictures. I would love to see it on your blog; with some poetry to go with it, maybe. 🙂

      Here the landscape was really, really dry and this was what added beauty to the landscape. Especially because there were so many of them, it was a fascinating sight.

  • Scenic Routes: Tehachapi Pass in California | Tipsy from the TRIP
    16 April 2018 at 5:27 pm
    Leave a Reply

    […] Altamont Pass Road […]

  • Leave a Reply

    *

    *

    Subscribe by email

    Get new posts by email:





    RELATED BY