Tehachapi Pass became a major center of wind power development because its proximity to the Los Angeles Basin reduced the length, cost, and environmental impact of transmission lines, while the pass’s geography concentrated strong winds as cooler ocean air moved inland through the mountains to fill a thermal low created by inland heating. Power from numerous wind farms in the East Kern Wind Resource Area is conditioned at Southern California Edison’s Windhub substation and sent south on 500,000 Volt transmission lines of the Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project to the receiving substation in Mira Loma. Before 1979, the pass had only a few water-pumping windmills, but after James Dehisen founded Zond Corporation there in 1980, wind turbines spread rapidly across the ridges and dozens of companies followed with experimental designs that included differing blade counts, vertical-axis turbines, and fabric-covered sails before later standardizing around upwind, three-bladed rotors on tubular towers. Early workers in the small pioneering companies took on many roles under Spartan conditions and improvised with limited infrastructure. Tehachapi Pass is also crossed by the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail, a 2,650-mile route from Mexico to Canada that spans three states, crosses many kinds of protected and public lands, reaches more than 50 major mountain passes, and connects landscapes, communities, and people while offering great diversity in terrain, flora, and fauna.