The Wharton map, and the years that produced it
The Department of Environmental Protection describes the map as the product of an extensive public process that delineates legal roads through the forest, on which a licensed driver can drive a street legal, registered and insured vehicle. That sentence is doing a lot of work. Before it there was no authoritative list, sand tracks multiplied wherever somebody drove one, and the department reviewed data from its own Fish and Wildlife programme, its Historic Preservation Office and its Office of Natural Lands Management before deciding what stayed open.
The department is candid that the two pressures pulled against each other. Internal review called for keeping some routes open out of forest fire access concerns, while consideration of natural and historic resources called for more restrictions. The result is not a permission slip and not a closure order; it is a network, and the department calls it a living map that will be updated to reflect conditions on the ground.
Carry it properly. The map is published as a georeferenced PDF that a phone app can place you on in real time, which matters because large parts of the forest have poor cell coverage, and printed copies sit at the Atsion and Batsto offices. There is no permit system attached to it at present, though the department says it will keep evaluating whether one is needed. Signs, usage markers, gates and barricades back it up, and the department puts the burden squarely on the driver to know which road they are on.
Source 5
What Wharton is, underneath the argument
Wharton covers over 124,000 acres of the Pinelands and holds three natural areas inside it: the Batsto Natural Area at 9,449 acres, the Oswego River Natural Area at 1,927 and the West Branch Wading River Natural Area at 1,367. Batsto Village preserves the ironworking settlement that supplied the Continental Army with iron goods and munitions, with more than thirty of its nineteenth century buildings still standing, and the forest office there is open daily from nine to four, as is the office at Atsion.
Camping is where the vehicle question bites first. Atsion has fifty tent and trailer sites and Godfrey Bridge thirty four, and both cap a trailer at 22 feet. The primitive sites at Batona, Bodine Field, Goshen Pond and Hawkins Bridge have potable water and pit toilets; Buttonwood Hill has pit toilets and no water. Lower Forge and Mullica River take no motor vehicles at all and are reached only on foot or by boat. There are no trash receptacles anywhere in the forest.
Entry costs nothing from the day after Labor Day until Memorial Day weekend. In between, weekends and holidays run five dollars for a New Jersey resident and seven otherwise, and an oversized vehicle pays double. The forest also states its own version of the driving rule in one line: the maximum speed on approved, designated motorized recreation routes is 20 miles per hour, drivers must stay on sand roads at all times, and off roading is not permitted.
Source 6
Brendan T. Byrne and Bass River, the two big Pinelands forests after Wharton
Brendan T. Byrne is the second largest state forest at just over 38,000 acres, with more than 25 miles of marked trails, eighty two tent and trailer sites open year round, and no entrance fee at all. It also runs Whitesbog, the company town where the cultivated highbush blueberry was developed in 1916, and the Dr. James Still Office Historic Site, the first African American historic site in the New Jersey state park system.
Bass River was the state’s first state forest, established in 1905, and its page carries the clearest short description of what the pine plains actually are: a globally rare plant community of pitch pine that reaches five to six feet. Its West Pine Plains Natural Area covers 3,830 acres of it, and the state says New Jersey holds the largest acreage of that forest type worldwide. Its 176 tent and trailer sites stay open all year, each taking a maximum of two vehicles including trailers.
The two forests disagree about the trail that links them to Wharton. Bass River calls the Batona a 53 mile route; Brendan T. Byrne calls it just over 50. Both are quoted here as what they are, two agency pages on the same path, and neither is a driving route: it is a hiking trail, and it is worth knowing where it crosses the sand roads you are on.
Source 14
Belleplain and Penn, the southern and the quietest
Belleplain, established in 1928, sits at the southern end of the Pinelands and claims the greatest variety of habitats anywhere in the state, from saltwater marsh through Atlantic white cedar swamp and mixed hardwood swamp to oak hickory forest, with over forty miles of trail for hiking, biking and horseback riding. Its 169 tent and trailer sites stay open all year, each taking up to six campers, two vehicles including trailers and three tents. Water and electric hook-ups exist only at its CCC campground, and its trailer sanitary station runs year round without a hose from November to March.
Penn State Forest is the outlier, and for a driver it is the interesting one. There are no marked trails of any kind in it, just many miles of sand road, a gate open sunrise to sunset and no entrance fee. The forest tells you the same thing three times over, for hikers, for mountain bikers and for snowmobilers: roads, not trails. Its Spring Hill Plains are pygmy pine that may reach only about four feet at maturity, and the state says New Jersey holds the world’s largest acreage of that globally rare forest community.
Penn also carries the origin story of the whole Pinelands preservation effort. Bear Swamp Hill, which the forest puts at approximately 140 feet above sea level, opens the first line of John McPhee’s The Pine Barrens from 1968, and this is the ground that was once proposed for a jetport. Opposition to that proposal started the movement that produced the national reserve you are now driving through.
Source 16
Sand, and why the beach permits exist
Island Beach State Park is a barrier island ten miles long between the Atlantic and Barnegat Bay, with over 3,000 acres of sandy beach, maritime forest, tidal marsh and dune. The park divides into three management zones, a northern natural area, a central recreation zone and a southern natural area, and the two natural areas hold 1,900 acres of dune, tidal marsh and freshwater wetland between them. Public access to the northern natural area is on foot, for fishing and walking only.
The rules on the sand are written for a vehicle that is going to get stuck. Grills and fires are allowed south of Swimming Area 2, they must sit fifty feet east of the dunes, and every scrap of charcoal leaves with you. Visitors must stay off the dunes and not disturb the vegetation. ATVs, alcohol, recreational drones, smoking and vaping are all barred from the park, with smoking permitted only inside your own vehicle.
That is the pattern all along this coast. The state licenses driving on sand where surf fishing has always happened, and it fences the licence tightly enough that nobody mistakes it for open beach access. Corson’s Inlet shuts its beach to vehicles entirely from 15 May to 15 September for visitor numbers and endangered bird colonies, and North Brigantine caps the beach at 75 vehicles at once.
Source 12
Island Beach, in detail, because it is the busiest permit in the state
One eight mile main road runs the length of the park, the gate opens at eight and closes at sunset, and fishing access is open around the clock. No vehicle is allowed north of the Gilikins entrance. When the swimming areas reach capacity, usually at weekends and on holidays, the whole park closes to new arrivals and reopens when parking frees up, and while it is full even walk-ins and passenger drop-offs are refused so that everyone inside can leave safely in an emergency.
Entry is a straight day fee, six dollars for a New Jersey resident on a summer weekday and twelve otherwise, ten and twenty at weekends and on holidays, five and ten out of season. Horseback riding is allowed from 1 October to 30 April on six miles of ocean beach, with reservations, which tells you something about how the park sequences its uses across the year.
The mobile sport fishing vehicle permit is a separate thing entirely and has been sold since before the state owned the land: the Phipps family let vehicles onto the beach for fishing, and when New Jersey bought the estate in 1953 it carried the practice on. Demand now outruns supply badly enough that the department gave up counter sales, because in person queues gridlocked the local roads, and moved to a lottery.
Source 11
North of the Raritan: the ridge, and Old Mine Road
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area is a long narrow park between two interstates, I-80 at the south end and I-84 at the north, and the Park Service is explicit about how you move through it: US 209 is the main north to south road on the Pennsylvania side, and Old Mine Road is the main north to south road on the New Jersey side. There is no entrance fee, though some sites inside charge per vehicle per day.
Old Mine Road is not a scenic loop somebody invented. The Park Service calls it one of the oldest continually used roads in the United States, a 250 year old route made of several roads strung together, with stretches near the Van Campen Inn and Hamilton Ridge where the unpaved roadbed survives. It is worth noting where the agencies disagree: Worthington State Forest says the road carried copper and slate from local mines and quarries, while the Park Service says there is no evidence of activity at that scale and puts the origin down to Lenape and colonial trails widening with use.
Uphill from it, Stokes State Forest covers 16,025 acres, named for Governor Edward C. Stokes, who personally donated the first 500 of them, and Sunrise Mountain tops out at 1,653 feet, the second highest summit in the state. High Point State Park holds the highest, 1,803 feet on the Kittatinny ridge, on more than 16,000 acres given by the Kusers in 1923, under a 220 foot monument finished in 1930. Worthington has Mount Tammany at 1,527 feet above the Water Gap and 78 riverside campsites along two miles of frontage, where the forest warns openly that power cuts are frequent because of how remote it is.
Source 24
High Point and Worthington, the two ends of the ridge
High Point sits at the top corner of the state and runs a gate that changes with the season: eight in the morning to sunset from 1 April to 30 November, then eight to half past four from December through March. More than fifty miles of trail carry hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, dogsledding and snowmobiling, and roughly 18 miles of the Appalachian Trail run through. Entry is free from Labor Day to Memorial Day weekend.
Worthington is the other end, at the Water Gap itself. Its trails are hiking only and no mountain biking is allowed on any of them, which leaves Old Mine Road as the way through on wheels. Sunfish Pond, a 41 acre glacial rock basin lake on the crest of the ridge, was named one of the Seven Natural Wonders of New Jersey in 1978 and is one of fourteen such lakes between the Water Gap and the end of the Kittatinny. Parking along Old Mine Road is restricted to official pull-offs.
Between them the snowmobile picture is small and specific. Properly registered snowmobiles are allowed in some areas of High Point, Wawayanda and Ringwood State Parks and in Stokes and Worthington State Forests, and nowhere else on state park land. At Worthington that means the upper campground field.
Source 18
Weather that shapes the driving year
The Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist divides a state of 7,836 square miles into five climate regions, and two of them matter to anyone planning a trip. The northern zone, with mountains up to 1,800 feet, can run more than ten degrees Fahrenheit colder than the coast in winter, averages 40 to 50 inches of snow a year, and has the shortest growing season in the state at about 155 days, with the last spring frost around 4 May and the first autumn frost around 7 October.
The Pine Barrens zone behaves nothing like it. Sandy soil radiates heat away fast on clear nights, so Atlantic City Airport can sit 15 to 20 degrees cooler than the marina thirteen miles away, and the same porous ground lets rain infiltrate quickly and leaves the surface dry. The climate office draws the obvious conclusion: that dryness makes the area vulnerable to forest fires. Snow falls in the far south from about 15 November to 15 April and averages only 10 to 15 inches.
On the coast, nor’easters are most frequent between October and April, and the sea breeze that makes summer afternoons bearable usually reaches five to ten miles inland and sometimes twenty five to forty. Rain is spread rather than concentrated: measurable precipitation falls on roughly 120 days a year, and annual totals run from about 40 inches on the southeast coast to 51 inches in the north central part of the state.
Source 35
Passes and routes
-
The Wharton State Forest road network
175.5 unimproved, 270.2 including paved and hunting access roads
Batsto, Atsion, Hampton Furnace, Godfrey Bridge, Bodine Field
The map that defines legal driving in the largest tract in the state park system. It carries 175.5 miles of unimproved road open to all street legal vehicles, 37.2 additional miles open to licensed hunters actively hunting in season, and 57.5 miles of paved municipal, county and state road, for 270.2 miles in total. The department warns that roads here traverse sandy and frequently unimproved conditions and asks visitors to approach them with caution. Download the georeferenced PDF before you go, because cell coverage across much of the forest is poor, or collect a printed copy at Atsion or Batsto. 5
- Vehicle
- Street legal, registered and insured, driven by a licensed driver. No ATV, no side by side, no non-street-legal enduro, nothing on tires over 40 inches
- Season
- Open all year; sand conditions vary and the forest asks drivers to check with park staff
-
Old Mine Road, Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
Columbia, Millbrook Village, Walpack, Flatbrookville, Layton
The main north to south road through the New Jersey side of the park, and by the Park Service’s account one of the oldest continually used roads in the United States, a 250 year old route assembled from several older roads. Stretches of the original unpaved roadbed survive near the Van Campen Inn and at Hamilton Ridge near Millbrook. The Park Service recommends it as a windshield tour and notes that the rough roads force you to slow down and pay attention. Parking is limited to official pull-offs; do not stop in the road. 25
- Vehicle
- Any road legal vehicle on the paved sections; the unpaved stretches near the Van Campen Inn are rough and narrow
- Season
- The section between the Worthington State Forest boundary and Millbrook Village, and the dirt section past the Van Campen Inn, close for winter
-
Blue Mountain Lakes Road and the winter gates
Old Mine Road, Route 602, Millbrook Village, Flatbrookville
The Park Service maintains over 150 miles of paved and dirt road in the recreation area and publishes exactly what happens to each of them in winter. Blue Mountain Lakes Road gates at the bottom of the hill before a storm and reopens when conditions allow, with walking, skiing and snowshoeing permitted while it is shut. Old Mine Road between Mettler Road and Route 206 gets no winter maintenance at all, is neither plowed nor treated for ice, and the park states plainly that travel there is at your own risk and that cell service is not reliable. Jager Road is treated the same way. 26
- Vehicle
- Any road legal vehicle. Several sections receive no winter maintenance at all
- Season
- Closures take effect on 2 January or at the first significant snowfall, whichever comes first; most sites reopen 15 April and the rest in May
-
Sunrise Mountain Road, Stokes State Forest
1,653 ft
Branchville, Route 206, the Appalachian Trail on the Kittatinny ridge
A road the Civilian Conservation Corps built between 1933 and 1942, running to a 1,653 foot summit that the forest calls the second highest mountain in the state, with a CCC pavilion at the top and views west to the Delaware Valley and north to High Point. Thin soil and a harsh climate keep the vegetation to mountain laurel, wild blueberry, pitch pine and scrub oak. Crigger Road, Grau Road and Struble Road at the 4-H camp close on the same calendar, and vehicle access to Tillman Ravine is restricted across the same months. 17
- Vehicle
- Any road legal vehicle
- Season
- Closed to vehicles from 15 December through 15 April, or whenever weather makes conditions hazardous
-
Island Beach State Park beach driving
Eight mile main road, with sand access beyond it
Seaside Park, Barnegat Inlet
The best known permitted beach driving in the state, and a surf fishing permit rather than a recreation pass. The park requires every permit holder to carry fishing tackle for each person over 12, a tire gauge, a spare, a working jack and a support board for it in sand at least three quarters of an inch by twelve by twelve, a tow chain or snatch line, a shovel, a flashlight, a fire extinguisher, a first aid kit, a trash bag and at least a quarter tank of fuel. Ten miles per hour on the open beach and on sand access roads, no driving on grass or dune, and every holder must be registered with the state saltwater fishing registry. Annual permits cost $195 for a New Jersey resident and $225 otherwise, and are issued by lottery. 10
- Vehicle
- Four wheel drive or all wheel drive only, in good working order and free of fluid leaks
- Season
- An annual permit covers all 365 days; weekday-only permits drop to Monday 6am through Friday 8pm from mid-May to 1 October
-
Corson’s Inlet State Park beach
Ocean City, Strathmere
A short stretch of undeveloped oceanfront preserved in 1969 and one of only three places the State Park Service licenses onto sand. The summer closure is explicit about its reasons: high public visitation on the beach and nesting colonies of federally endangered birds. An annual pass costs $50 for a New Jersey resident and $75 otherwise, plus a $5 transaction fee, and New Jersey disabled veterans can apply for a free one with a driver’s licence, a registration in their own name, a DD-214 and documentation of a service-connected disability. Swimming is not allowed and dogs are barred from 1 April to 15 September. 20
- Vehicle
- Four wheel drive with a mobile sport fishing vehicle permit, for fishing only
- Season
- Vehicles are prohibited from 15 May to 15 September
-
North Brigantine Natural Area beach
Brigantine, Absecon Inlet
A conservation preserve added to the state Natural Area System in 1967 to protect salt marsh, coastal dune and rare species habitat, with an unmanicured beach of open shelly ground next to an unmodified inlet. Taken with the adjacent federal beaches at Holgate and Little Beach, both part of the Forsythe refuge, the state calls the combined stretch the longest undeveloped barrier island beach on the New Jersey coast. No more than 75 vehicles are allowed on the beach at one time. An annual pass is $50 for a resident and $75 otherwise, plus $5. No fires, no camping, and fishing runs 24 hours a day. 21
- Vehicle
- Four wheel drive with a mobile sport fishing vehicle permit. The park states outright that this is not a four wheel drive recreation permit
- Season
- Subject to seasonal vehicle closures; pedestrian access on the oceanfront stays open year round
-
Wildlife Drive, Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge
8 miles
Refuge headquarters at Oceanville, Galloway Township
An eight mile auto tour across the salt marsh at the refuge headquarters, which the Service describes as one of the best birding areas in the region. It carries two wildlife observation towers, a boardwalk over the marsh with the Atlantic City skyline on the horizon, and links to a trail network. The refuge protects more than 48,000 acres of southern New Jersey coast, over 82 percent of it wetland and 78 percent salt marsh, running fifty miles behind the barrier islands from Barnegat Bay down to Reeds Bay. An entry fee applies to the Galloway and Oceanville area unless you hold a refuge annual pass, an America the Beautiful pass or a Duck Stamp, with self-pay envelopes at two fee stations. 30
- Vehicle
- Any road legal vehicle; the drive is a one way dike road across impoundments and salt marsh
- Season
- Open daily, sunrise to sunset
-
The Penn State Forest sand roads
Chatsworth, Tuckerton, Lake Oswego, Bear Swamp Hill
The quietest driving in the Pinelands and the plainest description of it. The forest says there are many miles of roads to hike, to ride a bike on and to use a snowmobile on, but no marked trails of any kind, which is an unusual thing for a state agency to publish and a fair warning about navigation. Bear Swamp Hill, an uncommon rise the forest puts at approximately 140 feet above sea level, is the hill John McPhee opened The Pine Barrens with in 1968; our own reading of the elevation surface at its map point gives 160. The Spring Hill Plains in the north of the forest are pygmy pine, four feet tall at maturity. There is no entrance fee. 15
- Vehicle
- Street legal, registered and insured. Sand roads with no marked trail system and no services
- Season
- Gate open daily, sunrise to sunset
-
Pine Barrens BywayPaved
130 miles
Batsto, Tuckerton, Dennisville, Port Elizabeth
Designated a New Jersey Scenic Byway in 2005 and later a National Scenic Byway, this is the paved spine of the southern Pinelands, running from Batsto and Tuckerton in the north to Dennisville and Port Elizabeth in the south through five counties and 16 municipalities. The Pinelands Commission administers it and worked with those municipalities and counties from 2001 to establish it. It is the practical way to move between the forests without grinding along sand all day, and it reaches the reserve that lies above the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer and its estimated 17 trillion gallons of water. 36
- Vehicle
- Any road legal vehicle
-
Sandy Hook, Gateway National Recreation AreaPaved
Highlands, Fort Hancock, Sandy Hook Lighthouse
The Park Service peninsula at the mouth of New York Harbor, reached across the Highlands bridge, with the 250 year old Sandy Hook Lighthouse and Fort Hancock at the far end. Beach parking fees are collected between eight and six, all toll booths are cashless, and parking at Fort Hancock is always free. Drive at 10 miles per hour at the entrance booths, and note the carry in, carry out policy. Pets may use the bayside beaches all year but the oceanside beaches only from 15 September to 15 March, because piping plovers nest there. Gateway’s off road vehicle permit applies at Breezy Point in New York, not here. 28
- Vehicle
- Any road legal vehicle. There is no off-road or beach driving permit for the New Jersey unit
- Season
- Open 6am to 9pm daily except by permit; $20 a day for beach parking from the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day
-
The Bass River forest roads and the Batona corridor
New Gretna, Lake Absegami, the West Pine Plains
The state’s first state forest, set aside in 1905, sits at the southern end of the Batona Trail and holds 176 tent and trailer sites around the 67 acre Lake Absegami that the Civilian Conservation Corps dammed into being. Its 3,830 acre West Pine Plains Natural Area is the stunted pine and oak forest the state calls globally rare, with a canopy that may reach only four feet at maturity. Each campsite takes a maximum of six campers, two vehicles including trailers and two tents, and the trailer sanitary station runs from 1 March to 30 November. 13
- Vehicle
- Street legal, registered and insured
- Season
- Campsites open all year; the trailer sanitary station runs 1 March to 30 November
Rules worth knowing
- Where a vehicle may go on state park land
- The State Park Service code is the governing text and it is short. A person shall not operate any motor vehicle on lands under State Park Service jurisdiction except on established public roads or in designated parking areas, unless posted signs allow otherwise. Driving over any cultivated or planted area, transmission line, survey line, or into the woods, swamps, bogs, wetlands or fields needs a specific permit from the superintendent for that activity and that location. Speed is capped at 35 miles per hour on improved roadways and 20 on unimproved dirt, gravel or sand, unless posted higher or lower. 7
- What your vehicle may be
- Every motor vehicle on State Park Service land must be properly licensed and registered before it is operated, and the driver must carry a valid licence. Beyond that, the code names the vehicles it treats as likely to cause damage and bars them: a motor vehicle with more than two axles, or one with tires larger than 40 inches in overall diameter, along with any ATV and any unlicensed or unregistered motor vehicle. The department answers the obvious follow-up directly. A registered, insured, plated side by side is still not permitted in a state park or forest. 7
- Driving off the Wharton map
- The department publishes the penalties beside the map. Fines for illegal off-road vehicle use and damage run up to $500 for a first offence, $1,000 for a second and a minimum of $1,000 for a third or subsequent one, a violation that damages or destroys natural resources can carry an extra fine of five times the cost of the damage, and vehicles may be impounded at further cost. The Attorney General’s guidance states the same penalties as ranges with floors: $250 to $500, then $500 to $1,000, then $1,000 or more. Either way, State Park Police have been issuing summonses since 1 January 2025. 5
- A plated truck is not an off-road vehicle here
- New Jersey uses off-road vehicle as an umbrella term that reaches pick-up trucks and Jeeps as well as quads and dirt bikes, which reads alarmingly until you get to the sentence that matters. The Attorney General’s 2023 guidance to prosecutors states that properly licensed and registered off-road vehicles, such as jeeps and pick-up trucks, that otherwise comply with Title 39 are allowed to operate on established public roads and parking areas like any other motor vehicle, but may not leave the road. That is the whole of your permission on public land in this state, and it is enough. 33
- ATVs, dirt bikes and snowmobiles
- New Jersey requires no permit or licence to operate an ATV or a snowmobile, but the machine itself must be registered, insured and carried on Form BA-49 through a motor vehicle agency, and every such registration expires on 30 September. The Motor Vehicle Commission states the operating rule without qualification: ATV and dirt bike use is prohibited in all New Jersey state parks and forests, no exceptions. Snowmobiles are the narrow exception on public land, permitted in some areas of High Point, Wawayanda and Ringwood State Parks and in Stokes and Worthington State Forests. The Commission sets the minimum operating age at 14; the Attorney General’s guidance cites 18 under N.J.S.A. 39:3C-16, with a safety course required below that. 32
- Camping is by permit, in marked places only
- There is no dispersed camping on New Jersey state park land. A person shall not camp on State Park Service property except in areas designated and marked for that purpose, and not without first obtaining a camping permit and a site assignment. Camping on any beach under State Park Service jurisdiction is barred outright. Stays are capped at 14 consecutive nights, after which you cannot re-register for seven calendar nights, further stays come in blocks of no more than seven nights with seven nights between them, and nobody may occupy a state park camping facility for more than 40 nights in a calendar year. 8
- Two vehicles per site, and what else the reservation policy sets
- No more than two vehicles including trailers may be parked at a camping facility; extra vehicles pay $5 a night and park where the superintendent directs. Check-in and check-out are at noon at all campsites, visitors are allowed between 8am and 8pm, and the permit holder must be at least 18. Alcohol is prohibited in New Jersey state parks and forests. Fires are permitted only in stoves, fireplaces, fire rings or approved camp stoves brought by the camper, and may be prohibited outright when forest fire danger warrants it. Pets need a lead of six feet or less and a $5 nightly fee where they are allowed at all. 9
- Fires, permits and the three restriction stages
- Under the General Forest Fire Act you must contact the nearest Forest Fire Service office for a permit before having any fire in a forested area. Recreational permits are free, should be requested at least ten days ahead, are not transferable and must be carried and shown on request. Three restriction stages can take effect without prior notice: Stage 1 bars all fires directly on the ground in wooded areas, Stage 2 bars all fires in wooded areas unless in an elevated prepared fireplace, elevated charcoal grill or a stove burning electricity, liquid or gas, and Stage 3 bars everything except electricity, liquid or gas. Violations can bring fines to $5,000 plus the cost of putting the fire out. 22
- Wildlife management areas are not open to driving
- The state runs a second, larger system that catches people out. As of September 2022 New Jersey Fish and Wildlife held more than 357,000 acres across 122 wildlife management areas, and the rule for them is stricter than the state park code: no person shall operate motor vehicles, including off-road vehicles, all terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, dog sleds, dog carts or trail bikes, on state wildlife management areas at any time without first obtaining a written permit or other authorisation from the division. Individual areas also carry their own indefinite road closures, such as the Three Bridges section of Mountain Road in Flatbrook-Roy. 23
- Studded tires, snow on the roof, and idling
- New Jersey publishes no chain law. The Motor Vehicle Commission’s driver manual gives one seasonal tire rule: motorists may use studded snow tires between 15 November and 1 April. It also sets a duty that catches visitors from states without one. Under N.J.S.A. 39:4-77.1 a motorist must make all reasonable efforts to clear accumulated ice and snow from the hood, trunk, roof and windshield before driving, with fines of $25 to $75 whether or not anything comes off, and up to $1,500 if what comes off causes injury or damage. Idling for more than three consecutive minutes is also prohibited. 34
- The Sandy Hook fishing access pass
- Gateway National Recreation Area sells a fishing access pass that is easy to confuse with a beach permit and is not one. It buys after-hours entry and parking at named lots, required from 9pm to 6am year round in the Sandy Hook unit, and the park states that it is not a beach parking pass and is not valid for beach lot parking during fee collection hours or when lifeguards are on duty. You must be actively fishing at all times while using it. A limited number go on sale at 10am on the first Monday of March, online only, and at Sandy Hook the decal must go on the front bumper. 29
- There is no entrance fee at the Water Gap, but there are site fees
- Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area charges nothing to enter. The park states that it has no entry fee and that certain sites within it carry expanded amenity fees paid per vehicle per day, which is a different arrangement from the state forests either side of it, where summer weekends carry an entry fee and an oversized vehicle pays twice what everyone else does. Summers in the park run hot and humid with pop-up storms, winter daytime temperatures sit in the thirties and forties, and the park notes that snow and ice are common between December and March. 27
Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
US Forest Service (USFS)
National Park Service (NPS)
US Fish and Wildlife (USFW)
Bureau of Reclamation (USBR)
Department Of Defense (DOD)
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)
Other Federal
State
Local
Alaska Native Lands (Patented or Interim Conveyed)
Alaska Native Allotment
Road
Primitive Road
Road
Primitive Road
Trail
Roads open to all Vehicles, Yearlong
Roads open to all Vehicles, Seasonal
Roads open to highway legal vehicles only, Yearlong
Roads open to highway legal vehicles only, Seasonal
Special Designation, Yearlong
Special Designation, Seasonal
Trails open to all vehicles, Yearlong
Trails open to all vehicles, Seasonal
Trails open to vehicles 50" or less in width, Yearlong
Trails open to vehicles 50" or less in width, Seasonal
Trails open to motorcycles, Yearlong
Trails open to motorcycles, Seasonal
Special Designation, Seasonal
Trails Open to Wheeled Vehicles Only < 50" in Width, Yearlong
Trails Open to Wheeled Vehicles Only < 50" or Less in Width, Seasonal
Wilderness Area
Wilderness Study Area
