dunefreak

Hey welcome to DDR. We used to go quite a bit in the summer for sunrise rides because we're close enough for a day trip (living in Vegas). You have to go super early and get out of there by 10 or 11 AM if you do go. Be extremely careful. The dunes are super sketchy in summer with lots of drop offs, razors, witch eyes, etc. Be extra prepared. Here a few tips I put together,

Oh man! Look at all those melted Can Ams. https://www.thedrive.com/news/41595/massive-fire-at-can-am-warehouse-torches-tons-of-atvs

Wow, looks like a beautiful day today at D. I bet the dunes aren't very crowded or tracked out.

It's already started at Dumont. I support more law enforcement for this kind of crap. lol I'm all about having a good time, but these guys take it too far and have zero consideration for others.

It likely went to your spam or junk folder. Sometimes you have to save the address or mark not as spam with some emails.

Hell if I know. I haven't found it yet so how am I supposed to know what it looks like?

No, you are giving these people way too much credit, Lee! LOL

End of July. The 26th-Aug 2

It is sorted out! lol It ran great. Looking forward to it.

Well the season has officially come to a close for us. It has been quite the rollercoaster of a month for me. So I'll quickly fill you in on my buggy motor drama. The short version is this. I have been chasing a low power/pinging issue with my car since last season. Two trips ago the motor went south as the rings were burned up (tons of blow by and low compression). I basically finished it off after 11 hard years of duning and I found out the timing belt had jumped time one tooth. That was my problem all along. Then I replaced the motor and went back out a few weeks ago only to blow the new motor up! I think I had a wastegate issue, it overboosted to 12+ psi and it it went boom. It put three holes in the block. I found another motor and thrashed to get it in and running. So this was our last trip of the season unless we blow this thing up again! lol I am been super stressed to get it done and all the bugs worked out because were going to St Anthony this summer. Finally after all these years! Anyways, here's my trip report. We arrived Friday night. The weather was awesome. We downed what seemed like 100 beers around the fire until the W switch flipped around midnight or so. We knew the weather was gonna suck, but we I had no other choice in the matter. I needed to get some time on this damn car! We set our alarms to get up Saturday morning and get out before the wind. Well, there was no such thing. We were up, but the wind was already howling. I went to fire my car up and it didn't start. My head is pounding from the previous night's bad decisions and now I gotta diagnose why half my fuse block has no power. lol I finally figured it out. It was a broken solder joint on a power feed. I got it fixed up and we headed out in an attempt to do a dune run. The dunes were so razored out and the sand was just flying off the dunes making it impossible to dune any kind of line. So I just sort of skirted around the outside of the south end and then found some "lines" in the dunes toward the north pole. It wasn't too bad out there but it was breezy for sure. Driving back to camp was pretty miserable. I wasn't sure I was even going to be able to put my car under a load in 3rd gear at this point because we had to drive so slow. The dunes were basically summer dunes. There were so many razorbacks and sketchy spots. Our normal lines were screwed. Back at camp we spent several hours inside waiting and hoping we'd get a break. It wasn't looking good. 20210424_120425.mp4 About 2 PM it finally calmed down a little bit and we headed back out. I found out only one of my fans was working so we went back to camp so I could fix it. It ended up being another bad connection near the fuse box. It was an easy fix but then the W came back on strong again! Damn it. Finally around 6:00 it was absolutely gorgeous. We got a full, solid dune run in and stopped in the dunes to enjoy the peace and quiet. We had the place all to ourselves and the views were awesome! We ran into some friends on Sunset Hill before going back to camp. Gotta love Jason's shirt! haha Back at camp the weather was still great. I was finally able to relax knowing the car ran good and was fixed. Sunday we slept in, relaxed, and drank mimosas. On the way out this little dude bid us a farewell until next season!

WHY? I will never understand why people feel the need to hang their trash on the pole.

Looks like at least another week or two of duning weather. Anyone else still heading out or have you called it a season already? We'll be out this weekend doing some more buggy testing.

Yeah I missed that. It was late at night (AM), not during the day. We were also wondering about the details and how this happened. They could have just been hanging out on the dune. ? It was close to camp.

Late Friday night (around midnight/ 1 am) I saw lights on the face hill which looked like some sort of accident. Then not long after that two girls pulled up to our camp with a truck and empty flatbed trailer pretty distressed and crying. They were lost & looking for the dirt road to go meet the ambulance at the highway. They said someone was run over. I'm assuming in their group. We guided them out and they met up with the ambulance. Then the helicopter landed but left very quickly after touching down. The ambulance left fairly quickly too. I posted it on our Facebook page and some people in the comments confirmed the guy passed away. So sad to hear about this. Apparently it was a hit & run and the person driving never returned. It was also on the coroner's page. On Saturday, April 3, 2021, at 12:36 PM, officers with the California Highway Patrol and San Bernardino County Fire Department personnel responded to the Dumont Dunes Recreation Area to investigate the report of a pedestrian being struck by an off-road vehicle. Upon arrival, Roman Jose Lugoaceves, a 47-year-old resident of Long Beach, was pronounced dead at the scene at 1:40 PM. The California Highway Patrol is investigating the incident. [04032021 1921 JL]

Sandcar: absolute best dune experience, plush ride, fastest dune experience, will do just about everything you want it to do if setup properly SXS: fun for most people, will give you plenty of fun duning experience and will go just about everywhere you need it to go, plush ride, not the fastest, but fast enough for most, also more versatile- can go on desert or offroad adventures Jeep: Not the best vehicle to enjoy the dunes. Comfortable yes, but heavy and dangerous in some situations in the dunes. A sandcar or SXS will ride much better. Good for exploring & playing in the sand every once in a while, but not the most ideal to go to the dunes with if it's your only dune toy.

It's a spammer in Russia. They've already been banned. Unfortunately they sent out numerous PMs to members so I'll be getting messages from many more to come that haven't opened it yet. Normally you hit the report button so admins can look into it asap. Just delete it though.

Looks like we'll have some warm weather finally. https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/USCA1133:1:US

Alot of the area around Dumont is not open to OHV travel, but there are some trails that are open. You just have to stay on trail. Nothing really that great for a dirt bike, but it's still fun to go out and explore. Like raspadoo said, Sperry Wash- you'll see it when you pull in. Also, there's trails on the other side of 127 but they're mostly wide dirt roads. Somewhere out there, there's a cabin. I have yet to find it yet.

Who's planning on heading out? Last trip I blew my motor but I just got it fixed (new motor) so Easter will be my shakedown and test trip. Hoping she runs strong with no problems. Vendors! If you are going to be there please post up as well.

It wasn't too far for many of them on Halloween weekend. Either way. I don't doubt the duning there sucks. That's not really what I'm getting at here. I just hope it doesn't get shut down. 1) because it'll possibly cause more people to come to Dumont. and 2) I don't ever like to see any place get closed for OHV use. Once they take some, they always try to take more.

It's a sad day for Pismo and OHV. California just keeps getting worse and worse! From Friends of Oceano Dunes... This raises some concerns for me. How will this affect Dumont? Remember Halloween weekend and how insanely crowded it was? Yes, part of the reason was because of COVID and everyone was finally allowed to do something fun plus it was the season opener, but much of the crowd were first timers from Pismo. At the time, Pismo was still shut down because of the pandemic. This drew a large gathering of duners to Dumont. I wonder if these people will flood Dumont for good once Pismo is closed off to OHV.

Thanks Jack. We miss ya buddy.