Altamont Pass, Northern California

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photo by Donald Kinney

Altamont Pass is a gateway between the San Francisco Bay Area and California's Central Valley. A surprising number of San Francisco's workforce drive the extra distance up and over Altamont Pass to valley towns like Tracy and Stockton where home prices are still somewhat affordable.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Unspoiled land. Looking South-west towards Livermore and San Jose.
What I needed (but lack) is a wide-angle lens, but I made this by stitching together 6 vertical images to form a panorama.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Wind turbines -- they weren't moving ONE BIT while I was there.
I had plans for motion photos of the turning blades. Maybe next time...



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photo by Donald Kinney

I suppose my first question would be WHY, if wind-power generation is SO profitable, is this fellow selling the farm?



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photo by Donald Kinney

Summit Garage has been here a while. This was the old Summit Road and more traffic passed before a faster 8-lane freeway was built a mile away. Imaginably, a lot of cars must have broken down on this old road. I doubt if repairs at Summit Garage were ever cheap, then or now.



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photo by Donald Kinney

The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was an infamous rock concert held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway in northern California, between Tracy and Livermore. Headlined and organized by The Rolling Stones, it also featured, in order of appearance: Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with the Rolling Stones taking the stage as the final act.

The Grateful Dead were also scheduled to perform, but declined to play shortly before their scheduled appearance due to the increasing violence at the venue. “That's the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn't even get to play,” someone was quoted in Rolling Stone.

Approximately 300,000 people attended the concert, and some anticipated that it would be a "Woodstock West." Filmmakers Albert and David Maysles shot footage of the event and incorporated it into a documentary film titled Gimme Shelter (1970). The event is best known for having been marred by considerable violence, including one homicide and three accidental deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident and one by drowning in an irrigation canal. Four births were reported during the event. Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen and then abandoned, and there was extensive property damage. source: Wikipedia

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