Officials say the rapid rise in popularity of off-road vehicles has begun to place a strain on the Gruber Off-Road Vehicle Park east of Muskogee.

Mike Ward, chairman of the Gruber Recreational Trust Authority Board, said that in addition to the all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles and mountain bikes brought to the park, there has been a surge in the use of four-wheel-drive vehicles.

Ward said he is frustrated with the damage done by some people riding four-wheelers at the park.

“They get down there with a pretty good group of them, and they take turns going up and down these rocky hills, and they strip away all the top soil, and then it rains and washes all the dirt out around the rocks and you end up with a big giant pile of rocks,” he said.

Ward said there is another kind of trail damage that is even more reckless.

“When the big four-wheel drives can’t go down a trail where the motorcycles and the ATVs go, they hop out with a chain saw and just cut trees down,” he said.

The Camp Gruber ORV Area was created by a land grant from the Federal Government’s Department of the Interior in March 1990. It is located south of Fort Gibson on Oklahoma 10 about halfway to Braggs. The 455.55 acres was deeded to Muskogee County for recreational purposes.

Ward said he hasn’t been able to get signage and therefore can’t get the sheriff to monitor the park and enforce rules.

He’d like to get rid of the four-wheel-drive vehicles altogether.

“That’s the thing; I wanted to just completely prohibit them from the park, but from the way that Gene (County Commissioner Gene Wallace) talks, he thinks that we ought to be a little bit more diplomatic with that.”

The alternative to reduce the damage being done may be some kind of management system.

“So what we’re looking at is starting a permitting process where they have to have a permit to go in there and ride, and that’s just something we’ll have to determine if there’ll be a charge or a fee for a registration,” he said. “Basically, with that permit they’ll get a map that specifies where they can take their Jeep.”

The Gruber ORV Park has no means of income other than land use fees generated by competition racing events held on the property, gate fees, and by donations from park users.

A $3 per person per day land use fee is included in each racer’s entry fee. The course includes rocks, tight woods, open areas, creeks and steep hills.

The permit-and-map process might be the best compromise, Ward said.

“We want to restrict them into just certain areas where we know we want them to go because the damage has already been done and they can’t hurt it anymore,” he said. “We don’t mind all the four-wheel-drive guys going out there, it’s just that it’s gotten out of control; they’re just going everywhere.”

Bill Stimmel, an off-road enthusiast and owner of Mud Bug Motor Sports, said the solution is to make more room for tourists and regulars.

“I know of a lot of four-wheel-drive guys who go out there, some of them go every weekend, and I’ve been four-wheeling out there for 20 years,” Stimmel said. “I believe it should be opened up for people coming down here. I even think they ought to have some events like they do out at Disney (another ORV park) near Grand Lake. When we hold our run up at Disney, we bring 250 rigs in, and every one of them spends the night, That would be pretty big income to Muskogee if you bring in 250 rigs and each one of them brings four people with them. We have one in the spring and one in the fall. We usually ‘wheel’ Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That can be a lot of money to the area.”

As for people deliberately damaging the area, Stimmel said he thinks most off-roaders are not that irresponsible.

“I’ve never taken a chain saw to a tree, and my rig is 8 feet wide,” he said. “I know there are some guys from Fort Gibson who have done it, but they told me they had permission from an official in Oklahoma City.”

Muskogee County Commissioner Gene Wallace said there has been a change in traffic which has created some new problems.

“It was historically used by two-wheel off-road motorcycles,” he said. “We haven’t had a lot of competition in the park with other vehicles until probably the last three or four years. And then you’ve had other interests that have found the park: four-wheelers have found it, mountain bikes have found it, off-the-road rock climbers have found it, that sort of thing. The only competition that I’m aware of at this point is between four-wheel drive and some of the other interests. Until we get into some major conflicts, I would hope that they could work it out among themselves.”

Wallace said Ward has spoken to the county commission about speed limit signage, an idea he doesn’t think will have much effect.

“First of all, there isn’t a tremendous amount of traffic, so it isn’t realistic to think that law enforcement is going to stay out there and enforce a speed limit to any great extent,” he said. “We might have to get signs in there designating certain activities in certain areas. But it would take a visual survey of the topography to see where certain vehicles could or could not go.”

Wallace was adamant that, although the park is open to the public, no one can re-design it.

“The one thing we cannot allow anyone to do is alter, change, cut trees, move dirt, things like that,” he said. “The park will and needs to stay in the original state as when it was actually transferred to the county. If anybody thinks they can cut trees out of that area, if they get caught, it’s going to be a very expensive tree-cutting for them.”