Through the years I've seen many videos of guys riding near wind farms. All looked to be good places to ride with wide open spaces. In our state there appear to be many wind farms and some realatively close by. I can't imagine that the land surrounding these would be public land? Most of the open country side around our state is private farm land or owned by companies. How are these people riding these sites? Is it simply asking permission or do they own or know the people that own the property? Just curious.

All the ones around our house when we lived around them in CA were posted no trespassing. No issue though since they were all on mostly unwalkable hillsides where the wind is more focused. Think where you usually see paragliders playing. I assumed the land was private and the windmills owned by the landowner or a lease paid to the landowner for their presence.

$7,000 to $10,000 per turbine per annum paid to the farmers. All on private land. It's a nice gig if you can get it!

as an aside as this is not always the case, sometimes those wind farms are butted up to BLM land (i.e. wyoming) which you have general free range on. As far as winter riding on farms, most farmers don't care. If you see snowmobile tracks anywhere near the farm, go and ask (preferably during the summer since some farms are vacant during the winter -an added bonus) I know a lot of farms in wa and Id that have told me "uh... whatever"

I work at 8 different windfarms in the US and none of them are really rideable due to terrain. The wind is very steady since that's the requirement for a wind turbine to work properly. The only windfarm that has nice open space are the ones in west Texas. We lease the right to use the land for the our turbines but we don't control what the farmers do with their land. Of course, they do have to stay a certain amount of distance from the wind turbines themselves. Most of the farmer will not let you ride because they are afraid you might get near the turbines. It's not an issue on windfarms where the turbines are spread out. We have some that are 1 mile apart and on other sites, they are 500 feet apart. So basically, it's up to the land owner.

I just wish they would start switching to vertical wind turbines.

We have a couple of lots that we use for snowkiting on the Tug Hill that have turbines on them. We are told that the closest the tip of the sail to the ground is 92', so no boosting under them! lol There is enough room that most people don't get too close to them. snowspider is in the foreground of this shot on one of his sleds, and his blue and white Naish foil.

They will as soon as someone makes one that match the power of the current 3 blade design. The tower we put up produce 2 million watts each. Most verticals I've seen only produce 4,000 - 5,000 watts max, which is why they are good for a single home. The tower we put up are 100 meters high with blades that are 100 meters in diameter. This means the blade tip comes down 50 meters above ground. Just make sure you don't use 50 meter kite lines .. haaha.. I've seen alot of other neat designs at the wind power conference but they are limited to home use.

Thanks for all the responses. Not such a good idea after all. So many acres of open terrain around and none of it going to good use in the winter time. I personally would never trespass on anybody's land, so I guess a good ole' fashion door knock and a smile might do the trick. The worst that can happen is that they say no. God knows I've heard that enough from the wife already, so what the heck.

LOL!! My wife suggests flowers and chocolates.....