Re: Broken windows at Freedom trail head !

Dadinpain, I know the open routes and terrain around the Bowen Ranch very well, having visited DCHS and explored the general area since 1984. Before Mike Castro began leasing the Bowen Ranch ( he now owns the property ) there was an open route which cut off of the Bowen Ranch road at the end of its county maintained portion ( just a few hundred yards east of the Bowen Ranch ) and this route went south passing by what was back then called the Moss Mill and then it worked its way down to the USFS parking lot. Mike Castro once he began to occupy the Bowen Ranch got this route closed with the help of his corrupt BLM officer pal Barrry Nelson who oversaw that area. Mike complained that the Moss Mill route crossed a portion of his property but I've never seen any legitimate evidence of this. If anything this route may have crossed a very small edge of the Bowen Property so it appears to me from the lay of the land in that vicinity that it would have been easy just to move the open route portion on the Bowen property a bit to the east to solve this possible problem of crossing private land. This route would be by far the easiest public route to re-establish, either down to the USFS parking lot on the Bowen Trail, or it could even just be reopened to a point on the hills just east of the current Bowen parking spot and people would then have a hike to DCHS essentially the same distance as they now do from the Bowen Ranch, except that they would be on public BLM lands, or USFS lands depending on where the parking area was located, and they would not be charged a fee as is now the case with the Bowen Ranch private property. My brother works with big dozers and I know he could cut in a road good enough for two wheel vehicles on something like I mentioned above in a day given the topography of the land in question. I'm not saying my brother is available for something like this as he lives in Northern Cal but just citing that this project would not be that involved or difficult realistically.

Now a longer option that could work much the same way would be the current open public route around the west side of the Bowen Ranch. It would involve more dozer work but a route could be improved to the Freedom Trailhead, or if the agencies felt that was to close a parking area could be developed on this route some distance further back the road. It would be problematic to develop this route all the way to the USFS parking area since past the Freedom Trailhead this open route encounters a number of steep hills which would be subject to much more erosion problems and maintenance issues.

As I said before once Mike Castro began to occupy the Bowen Ranch he made sure the Moss Mill ( easiest route for DCHS visitors ) got closed. Then there was for some time a good route ( called route 2 ) down to the USFS parking lot around the west side of the Bowen Ranch. The USFS graded the lower portion of this road and it was in good enough condition that two wheel drives could make it rather easily to the USFS parking lot. Mike Castro was angered by the USFS improving this road because more people began to use it which challenged his profit situation at the Bowen Ranch. Well this route got closed much to Castro's delight and what remained then was 3N59A running from east to west through the USFS parking lot which meant difficult access to it from either directions. Then people began hiking the Freedom Trail route off of 3N59A and thats when the broken and shot out window problems began. I think Mike Castro after the other two public routes had been closed figured he now had altered the acccess situation to the point where the vast majority of people would feel their only reasonable choice for DCHS access from the north side was the Bowen Ranch. Mike Digioia told me about how fired up Mike Castro became when he found out people were now hiking an alternative route to DCHS off of 3N59A ( this route now has a differant reference number that I haven't memorized ). It easily adds up as to just who would have the motive to vandalise vehicles out there, scareing various folks into not wishing to park there anymore.

Especially now that HWY 173 has been closed on the south side of Deep Creek I think a reasonable parking area for the general public in the Bowen Ranch vicinity should be developed to provide people coming to the area to visit Deep Creek and DCHS a decent route to a good parking area, one that does not require them to pay a private citizen to park on his little piece of property. Now getting the agencies to act on this is something else, especially in these troubled and difficult economic times we live in.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2011 11:37PM by Wizard.