Plenty of other folks want to play, too; YouTube displays clips of massive vehicles revving and roaring over the Pinelands' indelible landscape.
With 1.1 million acres (130,000 in the forest) sprawling across the middle of the East Coast megalopolis, the Pinelands attracts four-wheelers from all over.
"It's a hot spot, all right," says Horner, 64, of Medford, as he and longtime environmental advocate Michael Hogan take me on a tour of The Scar.
Near the border of Tabernacle and Shamong Townships in Burlington County, we turn off Route 206 near Atsion Lake and four-wheel a half-dozen miles into the forest, where it's legal to drive only on designated roadways.
Abruptly, the pitch pines recede. We stop where the roller-coaster of a sand road widens into a tundra of blackish mud, and walk on under a blazing blue sky.
Puddles shimmer with the sheen of petroleum. A fiberglass blob (the torched remains of a small boat) squats amid a scattering of cigarette packs and a smattering of fast-food debris. And fresh tire tracks head deeper off-road in several directions.
"There's this very small group that . . . wants to wreck it for everybody," says Hogan, a 49-year-old Bellmawr native who enjoys four-wheeling himself.
Certainly, people can four-wheel in Wharton State Forest without destroying the environment.
Such destruction is "irresponsible and unacceptable," says Pearse Umlauf, vice president of Jeep Jamboree USA, which will hold its 17th annual Pine Barrens gathering Oct. 28 in Hammonton. Last year, 36 vehicles participated in the three-day event.
Only a "small minority" of park visitors are behind the damage, adds Umlauf, who suggests that "motorized recreation" can peacefully coexist with environmental protection. "It's an enforcement issue as well."
