Jona, I advocate that if the Bowen Ranch is considered by the BLM and the Forestry to be an allowable and reasonable point of access to DCHS then another, strictly public point of entry should also be availabe, as is presently the case with Route 4 to route 3. If you were to consider that usage of a particular access route was a means to gage its convenience to the springs visitors then its completely clear that the Bowen Ranch is the route choosen the vast majority of them. If that is true then I beleive it could also be said that the Bowen Ranch represents to most of the springs visitors, the " easiest " way to access the springs. If reasonable and comparable public access around the ranch was closed, citing it as detrimental to the springs you would create a situation exactly like the one I found myself in at the time of the opening of the DCHS area after the Willow Fire. I was told to leave the Bowen Ranch by Mike Castro because of a simple, breif argument and the way things stood at that time, my family ( which includes young children ) had no option of access from the North side of Deep Creek which is the direction I would acces from since I live just north of the area in Apple Valley. In that case Mike Castro was in a position, as a private citizen, to decide who would be allowed to access from the north in a comparable way to the Bowen Ranch. A private person should not be allowed to be in this position regarding reasonable access to public lands. I am grateful to the local agencies for opening the public routes in the area which solved this dilema for my family. These two ways of public access from the north, the Bowen Ranch and public routes 4 to 3 will take you very close to the same amount of elasped time in your task of reaching DCHS when starting from a common point like the end of the county maintained portion of the Bowen Ranch road. This spot is just a quarter mile or so before you reach the Bowen Ranch. If the local authorities ever decide that for some reason the open public ways of access are a problem then I say that access through the ranch should also fall into this category since the great majority of the people go through there and so it realistcally with that thinking would be more of an access threat than the open routes around the ranch. In that case a common point of access, not including the ranch, should be implemented so that a private public person does not have the means to create their own private club with the most benificial acces based on the approval of that land owner. This I believe would be the fair way to approach a situation like that. I hear it argued many times that the Bowen Ranch presents a screen to bad people accessing DCHS. If you really want to know the truth about how effective a screen the ranch is then you should do a survey of not all the people at the springs, just survey the ones who do detrimental and degrading acts at DCHS and I have no doubt that you will find that the great majority of these folks pass through the Bowen Ranch. You can't expect Mike Castro to be able to calculate a visitors true intentions with a breif encounter at the gate. How would Mike decide if you, on your on personal trip to the springs represented a threat to DCHS. By your looks, how you acted, your cars condition, how old or young you were, or if he had a disagreement with you recently. The Forestry Dept are the officials who are responsible for laying down the law in the area around DCHS specifically when it comes to rules being broken or under what guidlines you are allowed to visit. When I access any public lands I do not want have my visit dependent on the will and scrutiny of a private public person who happens to own land in a strategic spot. With all of that said I also want to point out that I realize that the springs environment is under pressure and various things may vary well occur in the future in the form of policy change to address these problems. I am just suggesting that they be done in a equitable way in regard to the general publics interest.
