Re: Bowen Ranch hours change

I have seen in various reports before where some folks think that DCHS is in some way either owned or otherwise involved with the Bowen Ranch in some legal manner. The Bowen Ranch is an 80 acre piece of private property about a couple of miles to the north of these springs which are located well within the San Bernardino Forest area, public lands. If you were to look at property maps of the area, you would see how small a piece of private land the Bowen Ranch really is compared to all of the various BLM and USFS areas there are all around it. The " rules " mentioned by Neogeo in this thread only apply to the Bowen Ranch. The other public lands all around the Bowen Ranch have their own rules, like for example you can camp for two weeks at a time in BLM lands, then you have to move to another spot. I know you can camp in many places of the USFS lands too. In both cases generally there are no fees for doing this ( in some areas an adventure pass is needed ), and you can come and go 24-7. Its always best if you do not know the specific guildlines for the areas where you plan to spend time or camp to call the relevant agencies for a particular area to learn what the current rules are. I have not used the Bowen Ranch for parking when going to DCHS since around 2000. There are lots of open legal dirt roads out there which you can use for parking to access these hot springs from the north side of the canyon. I have been enjoying lately the Bradford Ridge trail hike to DCHS from HWY 173. The mountain drive to that trail head is beautiful! The BRT is a bit longer than the Bowen Ranch route but that is OK by me, I always enjoy the exercise Hmmm, why do I love going after more than 30 years of memorable hikes to these springs....... https://www.flickr.com/photos/hotspringswizard/10940102165/in/photostream/lightbox/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2017 12:21PM by Wizard.