Funtown in the Pines

And the enemies of fun

I love democracy, at least when it goes my way. This week, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection held a Teams Meeting to address their proposed solution of a permit system to stop illegal off-roading in the Pine Barrens, and people attended in droves to speak out against it.

As usual, I am of two minds on the matter. I am a hiker, a mountain biker, and also technically an “off roader.” As a hiker, I hated the mountain bikers; as a mountain biker, I hated the motor vehicle users. (And I think we all hate people who use those stupid onewheel boards, because they crawl down trails, often while using their damn phones, at one mile an hour.)

I enjoy “softroading,” or driving on the dirt roads of the Pine Barrens; I don’t call it “off roading” when trucks, cars, dirt bikes, ATVs, or dune buggies drive on established roads in the forest and park system. As long as the vehicle is licensed to drive on New Jersey streets, it can drive on those. Going off trail, or on trails not designated for motor vehicles, would be “off roading.” And there is evidence of both unlicensed vehicles on roads and trails, and legal vehicles driving off of the trails and destroying habitat. That is what I am against, and I don’t think permits will do anything about it. The park police need to patrol, and to have a phone number where we can report misuse—when we have signal—if anything is going to be done.

So, I was very happy that the DEP’s misguided permit solution pissed off the Pineys, who have been using Wharton for generations, and don’t want outsiders deciding how they get to use it. They are hunters, hikers, birders, campers, foragers. Many were against dirt bikers and ATVs, but they don’t want permits.

Today, I was out with a group led by the DEP to blaze a new trail between abandoned cranberry bogs taken over by beavers, and I got to hear a lot of hatred for off roaders. Personally, I think this is class hate. When I hiked, and knew no off roaders, I had a mental picture of them. They were obnoxious, bullies, killed wildlife, littered, and probably enjoyed the musical stylings of Kid Rock.

The off-roaders I’ve met in the Pine Barrens have been friendly and helpful. When “my machine was a dud, stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey,” as Bruce Springsteen sang, several people offered to help me out while I waited for a tow. When I got lost in the Pines, a couple of dirt bikers directed me home. I don’t know how they voted or what music they listened to, but they were nicer than the two people on e-bikes with birding binoculars, who scooted right past me without even a cursory wave.

I am your typical granola-gnawing treehugger when it comes to the environment. But I also think we should be allowed to responsibly use natural parks and forests as long as it can be done in a manner that won’t destroy it. For example, I understand why the oldest bristlecone pines and tallest sequoias are kept secret. I would love to see them, but I know I’d be one of thousands, and that many visitors would imperil them. I am with Chris LaTray, and against wolf hunting. Hunt for food, not trophies. (Please read Chris’s piece on wolf hunting in Yellowstone, below).

The Mountains Return

Many parts of the Pine Barrens are stunningly gorgeous and deserve protection, like the photo above, other parts are sand pits where it is a lot of fun to drive trucks and dirt bikes around, without running over any snakes or fording streams where salamanders and turtles get killed. I’d much rather have off roaders in places like this than acting out the crap in the car commercials where you drive down a stream for no reason.

That’s “Jersey Shore gravel” which you can find in every driveway down the Shore. The only reason to stop people from going there to drive around is because someone might act the fool and get hurt. That doesn’t seem to happen. The DEP seems concerned that people get stuck in their cars because Google Maps sends them down unmaintained roads, but instead of I dunno, maintaining the roads? They want to charge for permits so that can wag their finger and issue you a ticket. It’s not like the DEP or the Park Police do anything if you get stuck; they’ll direct you to a tow truck, who will charge 2-3 times as much as a normal tow. I paid $250 to get winched out of the mud, and gave the driver’s pregnant wife $40 towards baby clothes.

A sand pit in the Pines known as “funtown” by locals

A wildlife photographer who I met during the trail blazing spent a half hour raving against Enduro motorcycle riders, who he claims “cut secret trails with chain saws for every race,” and sneered about Jeep drivers who drove over piles of gravel, “because they think it’s fun!” This from a man who had just told us what he did for fun, which was exploring bogs in hip waders to take bird photographs.

I say, to each their own. Live and let live. A gravel pile is not a wetland. We need to choose our battles, and not lose sleep over how people have fun. (Except those annoying fuckers on jet skis.)

Two dirt bikers giving us the Jersey fist pump and cheering, because old farts in station wagons like to have “fun” too

I have asked people on the Pine Barrens forums about Enduro races. I know they were grandfathered in when the Pinelands were preserved; but I have yet to see Brendan Byrne State Forest “turned into a dirt bike park” as the photographer said. The only time I’ve seen an ATV user be a jerk was on Elephant Swamp trail, where two fishermen smoking weed blew past me on my fat tire bike and made a couple pushing a baby stroller dodge out of their way. A fat tire bike isn’t capable of much speed, but I did try to catch them. The South Jersey police, according to everybody, don’t seem interested in enforcing the law; they probably had ATVs as teenagers, themselves. In New Jersey, ATVs are only to be operated on privately owned land. They aren’t legal on state parks, forests, or streets. And while it is infuriating to see them flout the law, unless someone is endangering someone else, I am not a snitch. Or one of these people, who are increasingly common on the internet:

My father was a cop, a bad one, and his advice to me was to “respect the badge, even if you don’t respect the guy wearing it” but “think twice before getting police involved in your life.” And I like to extend that courtesy to others, unless they are being total asshats and endangering people.

Which means I would never try to get a book removed from the library because it offended me. So, I was glad that the people of Glen Ridge New Jersey—a town best known for a disgusting rape scandal by members of their football team in the ‘80s, and for giving us Xenu’s Chosen One Tom Cruise—came out to stop a small group of rightwing nutjobs from banning LGBTQ books from the library.

There is a formulated attack on LGBTQ people, women, and nonwhite people in the United States, in no particular order. States are passing laws to victimize trans people, and if those laws are permitted, they will go after their next targets, as they always have. Harkening back to my post about self-defense, I will once again suggest that anyone who has ever thought about training in defense do so. There are places that will be friendly to you. And you will not be alone. You don’t have to hurt people; situational awareness and a comfy pair of shoes are a great start. If you want to improve your awareness and learn to trust your instincts, I highly recommend The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker.

And to not end on a note of fear, here is the winner of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year People’s Choice Award:

Lookit the sweet kitty!