Jeff, Alot of these incidents that Katrina discuses concerning Mike Castro centered around the access issues of the road through the Moss Mill. It was a route of access for many years and for a time was signed by the BLM as being an open route. I was stopped by Mike during the time the BLM signs were up and he told me the BLM had no right to let people cross his private property. I then called the BLM and informed them that I was being confronted by Mike Castro about using thier signed open route. In short they told me that this issue was a grey area. I told them that they should not have thier signs up putting people into confrontations if the have no basis in law to do this. This situation caused many problems for a good while. Finally the signs came down. The Moss Mill has since been bulldozed and this road has been fenced by Mike apparently at the point of his property. There are many who beleive that this should have remained a public access since it had been crossed for many years. I think there are laws that allow for this but I don't know if they apply to this situation, apparently not. Since the closing of the Moss Mill road this area of contention is gone now which seems to have quieted down these confrontations over crossing the Bowen Ranch. The recent alleged incident of Mike chasing someone and causing him to crash into a barbed wire fence stems from old fueds still ongoing. In reference to the term lawless related to the Deep Creek area I think this is a term that came from some authorities Katrina recieved a letter from. She may come along and tell you who they were. I think to use this word " lawless " was a vague and inaccurate way to term the nature of this area. The street you live on in the city can be just as lawless when there are no authorities to stop criminal behavior. The law certainly has access to the Deep Creek area even though it is more trouble to get to. In my years of going either through the Bowen Ranch to its parking areas or parking on the open legal routes I have never been confronted by a threatening situation or have not had my vehicle vandalized. Thats not to say of course that problems of this nature have not occured there. People need to be careful and watchful of thier surroundings in any kind of wilderness areas like Deep Creek. It is open to the public at large and that means occasionally people who don't have your best interest in mind. As I said before I think the crowd that frequents the Mohave Dam area presents more of a threatening situation than what I have ever seen in my many visits to the Deep Creek Hotsprings area specifically. I never fear, because who wants to fight a nekid,ugly man like me :-)
