I had the pleasure of taking a Can Am X3 out to the Sand Dunes at Glamis. A big thanks to @FunAndSunAZ for providing me with a free rental. I had such a great time out on the dunes. It was my first sand dune experience and honestly it was a little bit terrifying, at least at first.
When I think of sand dunes I think big rolling hills of sand. Maybe that is a real thing in the Sahara but at Glamis they are more like rolling cliffs. You would drive up one side that wasn’t that steep but as soon as you reached the precipice it dropped off steeply. There was more than one time when I though that I was going to go over and flip but luckily the sand slows you down pretty fast.
Once I got the hang of driving and more importantly picking a good line to follow it became much easier. I still had to exercise a lot of caution but the key is that you have to ride up to the top and then follow along the ridge until you locate a good spot to either go down or transfer over to another dune.
It was a beautiful day and really quite an amazing experience. One thing that bewildered me is why the dunes are where they are and stop so abruptly. As we were driving up to the Glamis sand dunes the terrain was typical southwestern desert, dry with lots of rocks and shrubbery. Then wham! As if out of nowhere it all turned to sand and giant sand dunes. Does anyone know what this is that way?
[…] the afternoon progressed on the sky filled with more and more clouds. We were driving home from the Glamis sand dunes through the empty desert between San Diego and Phoenix. It is a barren landscape but yet […]