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While driving along Interstate 10, through the San Gorgonio Mountain Pass in the San Bernadino Mountains, you can’t miss the white giants.
The windmills.
While I was not interested in doing a formal tour, of which many different ones are offered, I did want to see these colossal turbines from a little closer perspective.
First encountering the windmills while driving along Indian Canyon Drive and heading to Joshua Tree National Park, I marveled at their size and stark contrast to the barren desert landscape. Since I did not have the time to stop and photograph the rows of white windmills at the time, I vowed to find a place to pull-off of the road on my way back and again, the next morning, for varying looks and lighting.
The Palm Springs wind farm was opened in 1982 and was destined to harness the natural wind from the San Gorgonio Pass, the gap between Southern California’s two highest mountains, a natural wind tunnel. Winds here have reached 80 miles per hour and generate enough power for 300,000 homes in Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley.
The windmills were installed at a cost of $300,000 each and are two-bladed turbines that require wind speeds of at least 13 miles per hour. They stand 328 feet tall and their blades are as long as half of an American football field (150 feet)!
As I had vowed, upon my return to Palm Springs that afternoon, I pulled onto a side road and captured an amazing photo with the sun slinking down behind the mountains. It was a spectacular sight!
The next morning, with the bright early sun aiming from the opposite direction as the previous day, I realized the opportunity for contrastive photographs. While traveling on Indian Canyon Road, just before Interstate 10, I spotted a sandy road with a sign directing travelers to the Amtrak Station. An empty parking lot gave me ample opportunity to gaze out at these skyward reaching towers adjacent to the station.
A short distance past the interstate, there were numerous side roads upon which I was able to pull my car onto and take more photographs. Although I wasn’t able to get extremely close, learn about the area’s geology, the development, design and evolution of wind turbines or see some of the older models or some of the windmill tops on the ground in the equipment yard as you would during one of the formal tours, I think that the drive through many of the back roads gave me the photo opportunities that I was seeking. There’s always Google for everything else, right?
While I enjoyed these spectacular views, they seemed quite familiar. I knew that I had seen countless older-styled windmills in the Netherlands and occasionally new ones such as these, but I had seen these particular ones and this landscape somewhere else.
Mission Impossible 3, with Tom Cruise was shot in this area. Remember the helicopter chase?
Go chase’em on your own or with a tour! Worth seeing!
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Palm Springs Wind Farms
- https://www.palmsprings.com/attractions/windmills/
- Address: Adjacent to Highway 111 and the I-10 Freeway just northwest of Palm Springs.
- Hours: 24 hours, daily
- Admission: free. Tours available with various operators for assorted prices.