rock stacks, right-of-ways & urban thirst

Thank you for your well-stated response, Wizard.

There are no easements of record for this stretch of road. The last easement of record on Bowen Ranch Rd. is across from old Paradise Ranch. From that point on, passage to Bowen Ranch has shifted over three different routes since the early 1900's and none were ever formalized. The current route utilizes Mark Law's Homestead route (now the main buildings of Rock Springs Ranch). People used to occasionally crash into the ranch gate until the county made the turn more gradual at that point. If you were here in the seventies and even into the eighties, you will remember that sharp corner.

If you were an earlier resident, you will remember that, closer to Apple Valley, Bowen Ranch Rd. made a beeline towards the Waffle Iron from what is now the corner of Bowen Ranch Rd. and Ocotillo.

Sound weird? Remember, this is San Bernardino County and they usually have only one oar in the water.

As for the property owner questioning the public's right to pass, remember that this road serves the local property owners also. Road maintenance is one of the very few benefits we receive for our taxes. Although the road does not meet Lewis and Clark's standards most of the time, we welcome those rare occasions when the County road patrol finds its way up the mountain. In dry seasons, they fill the washboard with dust which makes smooth passage for the first motorist to pass (it bares its teeth for the next).

There are some side benefits to its dismal condition. If you don't want to go all the way down the hill to Kragen Auto Parts, you may find what you need along the roadway. Also, the washboard has a way of chattering a fast moving vehicle sideways on the roadway, which normally precedes a rolling motion. For those of us who don't have television, these driver education events at Dead Man's Curve serve as a local reality show.

Rock stacking is a harmless expression of creativity by the mountain folk. Your cities deserve harsher judgment and your works are more offensive to us. Start with the double 250 KV Southern California Edison power line that blasted a picturesque rock promontory just across the road from the rock stacks that offend you. That power line scars the landscape all the way from Nevada and across Juniper Flats. We look at this abominable monument to your thirst for energy every day. At the same time, locals either do without or create their own energy.

Who are this power line's victims? Start with the Hopi nation on Black Mesa who are being displaced from their heritage by Peabody Coal. They must also contribute a drawdown of 3 million gallon per day of their limited ground water to pump the coal slurry through a pipeline to the Edison plant at McLaughlin. There the slurry is burned and the resulting pollution spreads to the Grand Canyon and Four Corners.

Bush immediately reneged on his campaign promise to clamp down on these outdated plants and recently relaxed pollution controls even further. As you take a deep breath of the worst air in Los Angeles in years, think about what a great sacrifice you are making for the personal wealth of Bush and his friends in Texas. And here in California, his buddy (our new Governor) drives a Hummer. Go figure.

I hope this helps put our local rock stacks in perspective.