dunefreak

Sit back and grab a beer because this will be my last trip report for a while. It's never easy closing the season out and knowing it is the last trip, but when they're like this I go home with a big grin on my face. I burned through about 25 gallons of race fuel in the buggy and about 7 gallons in the Raptor this weekend. I duned ALOT. I got in Thursday night with Lou B. His buddy, Pat pulled in shortly after me. He got his motorhome stuck in that soft patch at the end of the first finger, but he's no dummy and was smart enough to let out of the gas to prevent from burying it. I unhooked my truck and yanked him right out. We got to bed at a decent hour and headed out to the dunes bright and early Friday morning. Those dunes were nice! We ran all the way from the south end to the north pole zig zagging everywhere. North pole... Pat was passenger in my car. He was loving it until we got out to the n. pole. He mentioned his stomach wasn't cooperating much with that ride. lol On the way back I pulled over so he could feed the chipmunks. Buh bye breakfast! Sorry Pat, I had to take a pic. Lou b, Pat and his family played a game of what am I or whatever it's called. lol That was entertaining. Then Lou and I played around on the ATC's a bit. I even went duning a little bit on mine. Later that morning Lou & I met up with NE14SAND and his buddy Dave in their buggies and went for a ride. While sitting in the dunes on a break, bp-guy had just pulled in and called me to see where we were. He jammed right out to where we were sitting near Talladega in no time flat. He was anxious to dune. So we continued on and Aaron & Dave went back because Dave's radiator mount busted. Pat took his KTM 525 out and explored the area some. We told him about Sperry Wash and some of the trails. He was off! We did a couple more runs that day and even managed to squeeze in 2 cocktail runs: one with bp-guy and Lou, then a little later one with just bp-guy and I. We got a real good one in and then watched the sun go down at the end over a cold one near the superbowl. Go pro shot at the end of the ride... Good times. Cheers. A couple sunset pics with the 50D... Then we headed back to camp for some dinner. Lou grilled up some killer ribs for "orderves" while we grilled some burgers. A couple more buddies showed up, greedy bastard Mike, crazymexeddie and Robert and Jeff in their RZR XP's. Greedy bastard found the exact same soft spot as Pat and it was deva vu. I went over and pulled him right out though. We enjoyed a chill campfire and then a little later that evening we all headed over to comp hill. We played around a bit on the hill and enjoyed how empty it was. We cracked a couple "boys trip" jokes and met one of the bros from that camp and then decided it was time for a south pole run. We headed out there, then took the back side of the mountain around towards the camp area. Well, as most of you know how easy it is even for a Dumont veteran to get lost at Dumont sometimes, it happened. I pulled over and said, wtf I'm turned around. bp-guy pointed to camp looking at his gps, and we were off again. I was cruising through sand and brush that I never saw before. Wait, what's that ahead? AH CRAP! The south pole! Rob was low on fuel before and now he was REALLY low on fuel. LOL We headed back to camp via the comp corridor and had some good laughes. Saturday was another gorgeous morning to dune. We all headed out and did a group ride with the buggies and RZR's. Rob & Jeff We filmed and did some jumps at Taladega. Throughout the day I did a few buggy rides and one quad ride. I was saving my riding time for when Rap Rider showed up Sunday. That and I wanted to get as much buggy time in as possible with Lou before he headed out. We managed to get a good run in as the sun got low. It was just in time too because the winds were coming. Lou B decided to pack it up and head out because he normally leaves Sunday early anyways. About 5pm it blew like hell all the way until about midnight. WTF am I doing out here??? In came the wind! We watched a few movies, had some drinks, and just hung out in my hauler for hours and hours. A campfire was way out of the question. I went out to take my DDR flag down and thought I was going to get blow away. It was insane. Probably some of the worst winds I have seen out there. The wind was hitting the driver side of my hauler. The right side jacks were super tight and pushed down and the left side jacks were about an inch of the ground! I gave them all a good crank and hoped the wind wasn't getting any worse other wise I would be toyhauler shopping soon! haha Sunday AM: There were dunes in our camp. Everywhere where something was on the ground or parked there were dunes that formed. It was just greedy bastard, bp-guy and I. We burned up Saturday night's unused firewood. The sand was nice! greedy bastard We headed out for one last buggy run. The dunes were virgin....everywhere. No tracks whatsoever where we duned. We were out early enough that we layed the first set down except for one line that we didn't take. Looks like someone else had the same idea. We played around over at comp for a while. Tim had an issue with his car misfiring after landing kinda hard and I was nearly out of fuel so we headed back. Tim packed it up and as soon as he pulled out of camp Rap Rider (Adam) showed up. I was happy he made it out so we could get some rides in. We went on a total of 3 good, long rides that day and still had plenty of time in between to b.s. at camp and have some beverages over some tunes. It was a great day and super relaxing. Michael and Adam are great riders and I feel we were all 3 on the same "plane" that day. We all wanted to do the same thing. Ride, hit some jumps, ride some more, and even squeeze a ride in when the winds were starting to get crazy at sundown. That ride was badass! You would think the wind would have made it hard to see, but because the sun was so low it was really easy with all the shadows. We rode through a bunch of swirling sand and winds and even played in the technical steep stuff behind comp during the wind storm. I compared it to those surfers who go out in nasty storms to catch that epic wave. Pics from Sunday's rides... dust devil! Anyways, I'll wrap it up now. :blah: We stopped on the hill, watched one final sunset go down and headed home. I didn't pull out of there until about 8/8:30 pm. Got home and unloaded at like 11pm. Phew, I was beat! Killer weekend and perfect way for me to close the 11/12 season out. Next trip... definitely some early AM quads trips this summer.

That weed wacker your riding hauls a$$.

Have a great trip Pat. The dunes are crazy nice right now.

Turned out great, Adam. Thanks! I like the different angles all put together.