New to forum

Hey Gang, Tom here. I'm the President of Grass Roots Jeep Club. I did a little camping and wheeling with some of you in the spring. Just checking out your forum and wanted to let you know about our show!

thanks for the post...

checking it out now.

(I've got a grape arborthanks for the post...

…checking it out now.

(I've got a grape arbor in the back yard – if we can’t make it, I’ll drive around it a few times and think about the fun you’re having)

Tom! It's awesome getting to see you guys once or twice a year! I always look forward to our Annual May Pinebarren trip.

What's the scoop on the Trails over there? I got a message from Dom, but I couldn't link to it. Hope they don't shut them down. I have always been impressed with how drivers over there take care of the trails and how clean it is!

Welcome, from the right side of the Deleware. :) I am a bit further north than you (Bergen/Passaic area), but we have a sometimes member from Lawrenceville (screen name TJ, truck = first generation Xterra). Hope to see you on the trails.

k_enn

The situation is bad! We have extreme conservationists trying to get the pines closed to all 4x4s! I'm meeting with different groups to work together and stop this nonsense. There is small percentage of people that like to go out there and tear up the meadows and sensitive areas. That makes up all look bad. But I have 3 clubs so far working together and we are meeting with the Pinelands Preservation Alliance to see how we can put a stop to the illegal wheeling. Here's what we have to deal with.

http://www.njn.net/news/environment/
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/201....nds.htm l?reg=y
http://pinelandsimagery.com/blog

Hey - Thanks for the Heads Up!

That's some one sided reporting for sure.

Maybe we need coverage of the hundreds of people who show up in 4-wheelers to CLEAN UP the Pines every October....the Annual Clean-Up.

I'll talk to Mike about it.

Wow. The reporting is horrible...shows you what the offorad community is up against. Let me know if there anything we can do from this end. Sign a petition...whatever.

The Philly inquirer link seems to be broken (maybe archived?).

As much as I detest PBS, I was surprised how much they seemed to intentionally mentioned “the few bad examples”, probably because they’ve been called out on all their one-sided reporting – but no, they did not mention all the Off Road enthusiast that are respectful and do assist with cleanups.

As for the bloggers, we’ll they all think that mankind in general is a blight on the planet. Doesn’t matter what we do, they’d be against it.

This is why we need to keep up the fight, including reporting illegal behavior whenever we see it, and take out even what we don’t take in, which proudly we all do.

Here’s an idea – reserve about 10k acre (about 0.9%) for mudding, and pull licenses for illegal activity in the “reserved” area. Shutting it down for everyone will only keep law abiding drivers out, and won’t fix a thing.

And permanent destruction to the park is bull – check out places like Bear Valley that was a strip mine – it’s coming back with a vengeance.

But I know… I’m preaching to the choir!

I've been working with a bunch of different people on this including the guy in the video Russell Juelg from the Pineland Preservation Alliance. They don't have a problem with the legal wheelers. It's the people out there partying and tearing up the meadows and stuff. I've started a forum New Jersey Trail Lovers Coalition njtlc.proboards.com to help organize clubs to stop the illegal actions of some and to combat the issues as they arise. We are currently working on a courtesy patrol like they have on Island beach state park. Volunteers would patrol the trails and report to the authorities any illegal activities they see and if you come across some minor infractions we would try to educate the offenders instead of reporting it. The state park commissioner is working on a trail map with the help of other so theres no confusion on where you can go legally!