"Alturas - Seat of Remote Modoc County" Alturas by WulfstanTraveller

Alturas is a small town on the North Fork of the Pit River in the far northeastern-most corner of California. The sparse population of the region, distance from urban centres and major roads, and its location on a plateau with long and somewhat winding drives through hilly country to the Central Valley, makes it arguably the most remote county seat in California. The whole region, in fact, is relatively isolated.

It became the seat of Modoc County shortly after the county, not one of the original counties of California, was created from part of neighbouring counties in 1874.

Just north of downtown, Alturas

The town is rather quiet and there is little happening, with some services but not many. It is not only remote, but few tourists come to this region compared to other areas and it is not near any major routes to other places, being largely a fairly isolated agricultural region. However, it is an interesting place and can be a base for exploring the interesting, remote region it's in. It has about 3,000 people so it does offer some services even if they are very few.

Alturas is the only incorporated city in the county and has about 1/3 of the county's entire population of about 9,500 people.

View towards Alturas from Hwy 299

The region around it is mostly a mixture of wilderness, including rugged mountains, extensive wetlands supporting waterfowl, anf forests, with agriclutre. Mountains in the region range from barren and scrubby to very lush vegetation and mixed woodland.

Much agriculture is for grazing livestock but there is also some fairly intensive agriculture in the region, mostly in the fairly flat plateau land and particularly around Tule Lake region of neighbouring Siskiyou County.

• Pros:Interesting and remote, some interesting buildings
• Cons:Remote, few services