These dunes are famous with OHV riders. That stands for Off-Highway-Vehicles, and these guys are serious about driving WAY off the highway. They zip and zoom over these dunes at high speeds. That's why we were a little worried about how two hikers could share this sand with all these motorized vehicles.
We met a family at the bottom of the dunes, and they explained that the rains and winds convinced most of the weekenders to leave early. Normally this parking lot would be packed, so we were lucky to have such a small crowd this day.
When Denisa mentioned her fear of being ran over while hiking up the dunes, one of the young boys quickly sprang into action. He retrieved an extra flag that OHV riders attach to their vehicle so they can be seen before they top a dune. What a great idea--now the motorized drivers would know we were coming before they could actually see us.
We're happy to report that the flag is working, as the flag showed up in the picture above several steps before Denisa appeared in the picture below.
She carried that flag all over those dunes. There weren't any "pedestrian only" sections, and you can tell from the picture below that there were plenty of tracks to attest to the number of OHVs on these dunes.
One of the safest places to walk was in the middle of one of the giant bowls of sand that were too steep for the dune buggies to drive in and out.
Mark wasn't scared of those dune buggies. He only held the flag when Denisa finally convinced him that he needed to be in at least one picture (and she needed both hands to take that picture).
When we made it to the highest of the dunes we used the flag to acknowledge our accomplishment by planting it in the sand for a bit. From that tall peak, we could see the mounds of sand for many miles around.
We could also see all types of motorized buggies and cycles racing and chasing in that moist sand. Since we were there a day after the rain, we asked our new friends if they liked the wet sand. One thought it was better, the other thought it made it harder--so the jury is out. The truth is that moist sand happens so seldom in the desert so they had little experience with it.
We trekked back to the parking lot and Denisa returned her much-appreciated flag. This family invests in outdoor toys rather than video games, and it seems to be working well for them. The boys loved to answer questions about their cycles, and were so helpful.
Notice the back tires have paddles on the tread that helps to give them traction in the sand.
Those paddles also help to do some tricks on flat sandy surfaces as well.
Our new friends also described Test Hill, on the other side of Highway 8. Known for its steep face, it will test the courage of OHV riders trying to get to the top, or riding too fast to the bottom. They have races here on the weekends.
They explained that people using this parking lot closest to the dunes have to pay a $50 fee that is good for up to one week. But short-timers like us can park for up to an hour at the ranger station parking lot. That's where we saw this creasote bush in full yellow bloom. We see spindly versions of this plant in the desert, but this one has obviously been pampered to be so full and colorful.
From there we made the 3-mile trip to another section of the recreation area where they had a display of the plank road that was built for the earliest car traffic through the desert. Because those Model-T's didn't have paddle wheels, there was no way to get through the sand to the California coast. In 1915, boards were laid onto wooden piers over the sand. This is a newly built section, just to give visitors an idea of what it would look like when the plank road was first built.
Sections of the decaying road were gathered up throughout the desert, and were put together to make a historic site.
One of the problems with the plank road was that it was easily covered and then impassible when covered with the shifting sand. That is happening to this historic section as well.
We walked beside the plank road, because the 100 year-old wood and metal are too fragile even for foot traffic. This section of the park is away from the dunes, and we could see that we were less than a mile from the Mexico border. That long dark brown line on the horizon is the border fence.
Since we are walkers, we decided to take a hike to see that famous fence up close for ourselves. That also gave us a chance to see that the desert is trying to bloom, even with all this motorized traffic.
We made it to the fence, and it stretched as far as we could see.
The sign on the fence warned us to stay 100 feet away. We didn't see anyone wanting to cross into or out of Mexico. But we did see several border patrol vehicles also patrolling this area. This is a "floating fence," as putting a stationary fence would be impossible on this shifting sand.
As we hiked back to the car, we couldn't help but notice that this dune buggy wasn't staying 100 feet from the fence.
When we saw those tall sand dunes, we were wishing that we had kept the sand sled we had at the White Sands National Park. But we didn't see any other sledders today. We enjoyed hiking in the sand, and we can check another national monument off our list on another beautiful weather day.
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