Re: Castro' s temper tantrum - again ?

The one and only reason Mike Castro bought the 80 acres that the old Bowen Ranch sits on is because it presented Mike the means to make money off of Deep Creek Hot Springs visitation. Thats it! If there wasn't any money to be made, Mike would have been gone a very long time ago. Mike has bitched and moaned all the years he has resided at the Ranch about all of the troubles he " must endure " because he " has " to deal with various issues related to people visiting the area to access DCHS, and yet, does he just shut the gates to his private property, and be done with all of these so called " problems " . Of course not, because its always been about the lure of the un-taxed income he could make by just hanging out at an old rock building.

Back when Mike and others were spending time at the Moss Mill, they decided to get together and create a group called " The friends of Deep Creek " and they sought to gain the lease on the Bowen Ranch when it became available. What happened when it was all said and done is that Mike ended up swooping in on the deal, just for himself! Of course that way the income generated would be his alone. Mine, Mine, Mine!

Mike in the ensueing years has tried to make people think that somehow he is the " caretaker " of DCHS. So he gives people a trash bag once in a while when they pass thru the ranch, gives them a Cutsie Map of rules and trail details. How much effort does that take, really! How about those of us for many years who did all kinds of clean up projects actually down at DCHS, carrying lots and lots of trash 1000 feet in elevation out of that canyon, cleaning up fire pits, wax, graffiti, diapers, you name it. The REAL work that made the place less trashed, and more inviting. I used to go thru the Bowen Ranch, but back in 2000 on Memorial Weekend when DCHS was opened after the Willow Fire, I arrived at the Ranch, went in to talk with Mike a bit in the front little patio room by the front door, and he just starts going off about how " all of you hotspringers gotta start cleaning up your trash! ". I don't leave trash, I pick it up! I tried to interject to Mike my thoughts about " why are you talking to me like the trash at DCHS is my problem, somehow my responsiblility ". Mike is one who is a bullly type, he wants to be dominant in any situation, and he wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise while he continued his ranting bit. I kept trying to get across my point of view by Mike wasn't going to let that happen and he became incensed that someone ( in this case me ) would dare challenge him with my own thoughts. He told me " you need to leave ", which I did.

The thing is that weekend the officials had only opened a way to get to DCHS, just through the Bowen Ranch, the property incidently owned by just a private citizen, who as seen from what I spoke of in the above paragraph could dictate by his own whim who got to go to DCHS that day. Well after he told me to leave I went immediatly down the checkpoint that was set up on the Bowen Ranch road at 3N14 to speak to the officials about this situation they had put in place that allowed a private citizen to prevent me from accessing the public place of DCHS. They would not do anything about it so in the week to follow I wrote a couple of lengthy letters to the top BLM official explaining the situation and citing that if a public recration area was now open, that a private citizen should not be in the postion to block anyone he chooses access to the open area. I wrote that a public route had to be availbale to resolve this. Within two weeks a public route was opened.

But you see, Mike would just love it if he could have indefinitely remained in that position of deciding for himself who gets to go to DCHS, and who doesn't. An arrangment where if Mike doesn't like you for any reason, wrong or right, you don't go. Mike has perped a wide number of things for the purpose of discourging visitors from considering any of the other public acces means, scaring them into thinking that the Bowen Ranch is their only safe option for parking for their DCHS visits. Here is another example of this. After people began hiking the Freedom Trail I had a discussion with someone at the DCHS Forum and we planned to meet at the Freedom Trail one weekend for a hike to DCHS, Unfortunately we gave the date of this meeting, and Mike was known to be reading the Forum. This person's friend chose not to drive their car all the way to the Freedom Trail parking and left it half way from the Bowen Ranch to there. They parked on the side of the road along this route and walked to the Freedom Trail parking spot. We spent the day at DCHS and late that day when these people got back to their car they found that their back window had been broken out, and they said it looked like it may have been done by a baseball bat. This is during a time when Mike was known to be all riled up about people using the Freedom Trail to access DCHS. I talked to people who were at the Bowen Ranch hanging with Mike during this time and they told me how pissed off he was about this trail.

The picture of just what Mike is all about becomes more and more clear, as you hear time and time again the same type stories of how he has behaved. What does he do? He has run around on his blazing moto ( he almost ran over my dog one day racing past me ) up in the various parking areas, harrassing people trying to create an atmosphere were people gravitate back to the Bowen Ranch to be cash paying customors. On the other hand Mike has consistently never done anything of real work to clean up after the actual on the ground degredation that occurs at DCHS. You think you would ever see Mike Castro carrying a full 30 gallon bag of trash out of the Deep Creek Canyon? Maybe in your dreams!

Lastly regarding the Toll Fee, I talked to a person who was one of the people in years past that used to spend time at the Bowen Ranch and take the cash from hot springs visitors. He said the cash is just pocketed, no records, no receipts, no taxes paid for this income. Of course that has been very obvious all along. And this person said Mike used to constantly jip them on what he was supposed to pay them to be the cash collectors!

And Jobe, you mention that you refer people to the Bowen Ranch so you can watch the Growler ( AKA, Mike ) suffer with all of the problems they create for him. You also have referred to him many times as a Crime-Animal, a fitting moniker! As far as I'm concerned, Mike is reaping what he has sown! He has caused so many people unjustifiable trouble over the years, and now the troubles are coming back to haunt him, now that he has greedily harnessed himself to a Money Making Machine that he is loath to let go of, being just one of his addictions!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/13/2010 02:01PM by Wizard.