Silver Lake Sand Dunes

Saturday Ben and I traveled to the Silver Lake Sand Dunes.  The dunes were a place that Bryan and I used to go as a kid with our dad, but that was a long time ago.  Not much has changed in Silver Lake.

Since buying the Wrangler last summer, I have logged a total of about one hour off-road, which is pretty pathetic.  I set my goals for Saturday pretty low.  I wasn't sure we were going to be able to get onto the dunes, as I had heard that the line queues up very early to get onto the dune, and the park had instituted a reservation system to limit the number of available daily slots.  I decided that if we could just learn the process for how to get onto the dune, the day would be a success and we would be ready to go for the next time.

After stopping in at the local buggy shop, we decided that the dunes would be accessible for us today, and we put the gears in motion.  One ORV flag and five state park checkpoints later we were in the pits deflating the tires.  One final checkpoint (that makes a total of six) and we were ascending into the dunes behind an H2 with more visible chrome from the backside of his rig than the total value of my ride.  Before we even reached the dunes, we drove past an F-150 that was already stuck in the sand.  I started to wonder how long before we buried my stock TJ with street tyres and no shovel or tow strap..

10 psi

After a couple of slow warm up laps through the dunes our confidence started to build and we took on most everything the dunes had to offer, steep sandy hills, mud pits, and some high speed descents down the hills.

 According to Ben, the original mystery machine was a 1966 Chevy SportVan.

These guys were having as much fun as this looks.  The two guys in the front were all smiles and strapped in and holding onto the roll cage, however the same could not be said for the single back seat passenger, from our vantage point it appeared he was loosely coupled to a milk crate.  Every time they blew past us, they threw a thumbs up while wildly laughing - good times.

The TJ's first run at greatness.

The first run at the hill was a failure, due to a missed shift, which resulted in a long humiliating roll backwards down the hill. All subsequent runs were a success, not bad for two city boys.  The capabilities of the Wrangler, even in stock form really impressed me.

The quote of the day came from Ben when I was describing to him some of the unique qualities of drifting sand to watch out for while motoring, and his response to me was, 'So are you saying that you know how to read the Sand ?'

The day was great fun, we managed to keep from getting stuck, and watching some of the other characters out on the dunes was highly entertaining.

Top of the sand pile

After a few hours in the sand, we had enough.  After re-inflating the tyres and a quick pass through town, we decided to head down to Grand Haven for dinner before heading home.

A unique marine fog layer lent itself well to some artsy photos.

It was a great day - tons of laughs and high adventure, while laying a solid foundation for good times to come.