Hey, I stumbled upon this dated thread, and started to reminisce of my good old days back at Bowen Ranch in the 90s. I drove for the green tortoise tour bus and for many years every trip we ran started our first day soaking at Deep Creek Hot Springs via Bowen Ranch.
The place is amazing, and getting nude together that first day set a precedent that remains unparalleled and unequalled to this day. The GT really lost something when we stopped going to Bowen Ranch and Deep Creek. I've got a lot of memories of Mike Castro, and I've seen him in action going after ner do wells and sneaks, and frankly it was exciting at times. Most often though, he was simply caretaking, watching out for us, or going after lost folks in the Sun.
I always liked Mike, and I felt like he welcomed and more importantly protected our group. He was always a gracious host, kind and charming to everyone in our motley bunch, and a pleasant host to the women which frankly can be hard to find at remote unregulated Hot Springs. Of course we were always respectful in return and paid on the way in and picked up after ourselves on the way out.

I think some folks are forgetting, this is the wild west out there. You've gotta have a certain element of tough otherwise you're going to get run right over. Good luck finding somebody to help you in times of duress out there, other than Mike, you are on your own.
The place is close to LA and undoubtedly attracts lots of crazy folk, and there needs to be somebody out there dealing with it. Without Mike, no doubt in my mind the place would quickly be overrun with drunks and outlaws and broken glass. Either that, or snapped up as private property by someone who won't share the place and then access denied for everybody else forever more. and quite possibly by somebody who would shoot you on sight just for trespassing on their land, and be on their legal rights to do so.
Now I'm sure that 5 minutes of closed gate was pretty scary for the OP, tho after hours of trespassing on Mike's property, and I bet his bark scared them worrying about his bite, however, nothing physical happened here, and the fact is they got caught breaking the law and don't like the way the message was delivered. It takes two to make a escalation. If the sheriff showed up, I'm betting it would be the OP getting the ticket, not Mike. They were in fact stealing from him. And just look at the attitude- the post is downright slanderous and mean spirited. I can't help but wonder how much attitude and ego came into play here. I don't mean to downplay what was clearly a intimidating experience, and I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of Mike either!

This could have been so easily avoided...

I've spent my career facilitating unique group experiences in amazing remote places and Deep Creek remains in my mind to be in the top 5 of the best awesome legendary places in this great country that we were lucky enough to routinely visit. And I got to take my hat off to Mike for keeping it safe all these years.

Here's some thoughts from a guy who's had many successful years taking groups of people to Bowen Ranch.
1. Pay the entrance fee!
2. Don't bring glass, break glass, or try to camp down at the tubs
3. Be respectful of Mike and his private property
4. Wag more, bark less



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2016 03:33PM by Jimi.