Pine Tree Wind Farm

Mankind has been harnessing the power of the wind for many millennia now. From windmills used to mill grain to sails for ships to windpumps and even chafing grain, wind was and is a free but unreliable power source. Modern industrial man almost completely forgot about the wind being used as a power source during his mad love affair with carbon based fuels. Now in the current era we find ourselves at the mercy of oil cartels, environmentalists, power hungry politicians, greedy automobile companies and a very spoiled population.

So now in the 2000's both solar power and wind power have become popular to the point that many people see both solar power and wind power as our salvation for our mobility freedom and independence from foreign oil/natural gas exporting nations. Public mass transportation in America is still a curse word and far too much of the population still considers public mass transportation as a device for getting the poor to government medical hospitals, Federal Aid centers and the local unemployment office! How totally lame and ignorant. See the Quick Facts PDF to refute this idea.

But fear not the wind is blowing up a storm and with it's sister solar power all will be saved! But at what cost? How many mountain ridges will be converted into wind farms? How many farmers will give under to the quick deal of cash so that their agricultural farms (used to feed the ever growing US population) can be plowed under to be re-made in wind/solar farms? How much of our western desert can be converted into solar power farms before the entire western desert looks like a massive aluminum stain across our landscape?

With those thoughts in mind let's go visit a wind farm in Southern California.

Many a traveler along the California State Route 58 going either Eastward or Westward through the Tehachapi Mountains between Mojave and Tehachapi will see a mass of wind turbines among the hills. This is the famous Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm. Back in the mid 1980's when I first traveled by motorcycle through the Tehachapi Mountains the wind farm was almost entirely concentrated on the mountains to the south of the freeway between the Sand Canyon road and the railroad overpass. Only a hundred or so wind turbines could be seen from the freeway. Now a third of a century has passed and the wind turbines have multiplied like weeds and have grown all over the Tehachapi Mountains almost down into the town of Mojave itself!


Presently the Tehachapi Wind Farm has about 4,730 plus wind turbines and altogether (maybe a dozen different companies) produce about 3,200 plus megawatts of electricity. Nice! But the Tehachapi Wind Farm has a significant amount of older kilowatt type wind turbines. What about a newer more current wind farm?

Going east from Tehachapi Wind Farm, along the southern Tehachapi Mountains paralleling the SR 14 is another wind farm that is set back further into the mountains. Originally known as the Pine Tree Wind Project but now that the LA Department of Water and Power owns the facility the official name is Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm.

Access to the Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm is normally via the Jawbone Canyon road which runs through, you guessed it, Jawbone Canyon!
Where did the name "Jawbone Canyon" originate? And where is this Jawbone Canyon? European Americans (distinct from Native Americans) possibly named the canyon Jawbone due to the shape of the canyon acording to the Wiki.


Really? But I have sincere doubts about this version for the naming of the canyon. So I am to believe that in 1860 the shape of the canyon was determined by what I imagine were a pack of European Americans gold rush miners, mule skinners, or prospectors climbing to the peaks of a dozen or so hills that surround Jawbone Canyon and then promptly after each hill climber was finished viewing his section of the canyon proceeded to huddle up with his peers and produce a composite map using pencil and paper that every miner carried in abundance!

I think the Myth Busters would blow up this myth quickly. Jawbone Canyon was probably named as such by one miner telling his fellow miners to just "follow my trail which will be littered with the jawbones of my dead mules cause I cannot find water anywhere"! Just my late night convoluted thinking.


So Jawbone Canyon is located in the south eastern Tehachapi Mountains just north of the SR14. The canyon was most likely made over many millennia by the Jawbone Wash, which is normally a dry wash. I am told that during winter and early spring a trickle of water may flow through the wash. A heavy summer downpour could lead to a flash flood through the canyon.



First off lets get 1 item straight! Especially for the moron who penned a www.skyscanner.com review in 2017 stating:


This is NOT a federal or state run "ranger station" but is a privately run visitor center manned by volunteers from the  Friends of Jawbone! And on another note, when I visited the Jawbone Station Visitor Center in September of 2018 I found the site clean, manned by a nice fellow who let us know that in 10 minutes he would be closing the shop and asked us if we needed any assistance before he started to close up his booth.

Outside the front entrance of the Jawbone Station Visitor Center you might get a chance to meet "Bob" if you are there late in the evening. Bob is about 120 years old and is a Western Mojave Desert Tortoise who has been working as a mascot for the last 18 years!









Next we can start our journey up the Jawbone Wash on a Jawbone Road which goes from paved to dirt and back a few times ultimately ending up as a un-paved dirt road. Jawbone Canyon Road can thus be considered a roughly graded dirt road with patches of pavement in the lower elevations that ultimately connects the desert areas of Jawbone Canyon with the pine-covered Piute Mountain region which is about 38 trail miles away in the Sequoia National Forest.

Our journey only goes about 1/4 of this distance!

About 2 1/2 miles or so from the Jawbone Station you will see this whitish tube snaking across a ridge! This is part of the L.A. Aqueduct coming down from Owens Lake.


This is the 2nd of 2 aqueducts that the City of Los Angeles (DWP) built to remove most of the available water from the Owens Valley. The city of Los Angeles through it's DWP began a five-year construction plan in 1965 to build another 137 mile aqueduct to remove even more water from the Owens Valley. The cost of the second aqueduct in 1965 dollars was $89 million. Today that cost would be approximately $713 million!

Three items to notice in the above 2 photos:

1. The electrical power lines seen to the upper left in each photo are NOT from the Pine Tree Wind Farm but used at this point for the Beacon and Barren Ridge solar farms on the south side of the hills.

2. The aqueduct pipe itself has a water spigot and some form of catchment basin under the tube. Cannot find out what exactly this is. In the distance the aqueduct goes through the hills and then parallels the SR 14 highway until past Mojave.

3. Notice the hill to the upper right and to the left of the DWP dirt road going over the hill. OHV vehicle destruction can be easily seen. Are these trails that the OHV riders are supposed to follow or as one would expect that the Jawbone-Butterbredt ACEC and the Jawbone Canyon Off-Highway Vehicle Area are 2 polar opposites and the Jawbone-Butterbredt Area of Critical Environmental Concern is a horrible joke!


Above is a snapshot of the Second LA Aqueduct as it comes over the hills from the north. This is mid 1960 engineering tech. Later you will see early 1900's engineering tech of the original LA Aqueduct. You can see this feature from outer space!


This is the first Los Angeles Aqueduct built in the early 1900's. The project was approved by bond measure to the tune of $23 million (Wiki states $24.5 million). Today that would be $586 million or more!

The project started in 1907 and completed in 1913. Primarily engineered by William Mulholland and helped by former Los Angeles mayor Frederick Eaton.

The unbelievable irony here is that Los Angeles DWP now has to maintain this water thieving pipeline against the same people who use this area as a off-road vehicle playground who when finished with their "weekend warrior desert destruction" cycle head back down to Los Angeles to wash off their ATV's, water their lawns and then finally wash the desert dust off their trucks and vans using the same water that comes down through this pipe!







RESEARCH ON OFF-HIGHWAY VEHICLE EFFECTS



Moving further up the Jawbone Canyon in the wash you will notice that the brush is thicker. Mostly likely due to the greater amount of water the plants receive here compared to plants on the hills beyond. This might be the Artemisia Tridentata type of sagebrush. But in reality it is Rabbitbrush!

Artemisia Tridentata — Big Sagebrush

Big sagebrush gets its name from its stature and its relation to members of the sagebrush group. Artemisia (ar-tay-MIS-ee-a) is from Artemisia, wife of Mausolus, ancient ruler of Ceria (southwest Asia Minor). She was named after Artemis, the Greek virgin goddess of the hunt and wild nature. Tridentata (tri-den-TAH-ta) means "three toothed," in reference to the three lobes on the tips of most leaves. Also called big sage, common wormwood or basin sagebrush.

Big sagebrush is the most abundant and widespread of all the species of sagebrush. Big Sagebrush has four distinctive subspecies, each with multiple geographic races that are sometimes named as varieties. Hybridization between subspecies is common, often making clear identification next to impossible.

The fourth subspecies (4) is Parish big sagebrush (subsp. parishii). It is similar to Basin big sagebrush in form and habitat, except that it extends southward from the Great Basin into the Mohave Desert shrublands, is more heat-tolerant than the other subspecies, and it has drooping inflorescence branches and hairy seeds.

Flowering period: Late summer to late fall.

For more information see the Sagebrush Pocket Guide from www.sagestep.org


The fencing seen here I suppose was used to keep out vehicles and prevent them from using the wash as a OHV area. Uhh this fence could not keep a 6 year old on a tricycle from entering!


Paved portion of the Jawbone road with Wind Turbines in the distance. The direction here is northwest. Notice that the hills are becoming mountains.


A typical guard shack or in this case a stunted trailer! Looks like the guards have a portable electrical generator and the always useful Port-a-Potty! 

Wait. What? A portable gasoline or diesel electrical generator will all that electricity being generated by those wind powered generators in the background!

Notice different types of sagebrush. The sagebrush in the wash is greener and fuller than the bushes along the side of the road and the small bushes clinging to the side of the hill are completely different altogether.

Nice fence fellows, the half fence to the left that is! Uhh what is it used for? Because it does not look as if it could stop that 6 year old kid on a tricycle we spoke about earlier when we were further down the wash.

At this point we will need to use a Arabian Flying Carpet to see the Pine Tree Wind and Solar Farm! So lets take a magic carpet to Part 2 of this overly large page.

 
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