After the Wahiba Challenge I thought: “Mr. Money Mustache be damned… I’m buying a jeep.” I bought a Jeep right after Christmas holiday’s and did one crossing and the extreme Wahiba challenge in January.
The jeep I bought is affectionately known as the “yellow peril” by some people in the Oman Off-roading community. I like to think because you follow it (or Simon the previous owner) at your own peril…
Anyway part of the purchase was to go for a training weekend in the dunes which I thought would be a great way to learn desert driving. So Simon and I headed out the third weekend in January to Al Kamil and proceeded to cross the Wahiba from East to West. Throughout the weekend Simon and I switched back and forth usually me driving first then Simon. After each of my turns, Simon would increase the technicality and add new techniques to the driving style. For a lot of the weekend we led the group, which I really enjoyed as it adds a extra layer of complexity to the driving. Whenever I would need to apply power Simon would say “give it some welly,” I will likely hear that in my head for a long time.
Most trips to the desert start with a long drive and shwarma!
I am not sure why everyone says east to west instead of westward crossing but I found the team dynamics and the driving completely different because of the shape of the dunes. The Wahiba is a series of very large dunes that are as high as 330 feet (100 meters) high running north south with valley’s between them. The large dunes are triangles with one near 45 degree side and one side that is much flatter but covered with a mix of up to 40 foot high undulating dunes, small valley’s and the occasional flat spot that you must pick your way through to get to the top of the large dune. This also means that you do a lot of “cresting” which is where you must apply the right amount of power to get your front wheels over the top of the dune but still be able to stop if it is too steep to go down.
Richard’s simplified cross section of a Wahiba dune.
On the Eastward crossing the main obstacle are the steep faces which means that each team spends a lot of time waiting for each other to climb up. The people on the bottom chat watching the climbing and the people on top chat and celebrate as people get up. Coming down the backside of the dune you climb the twenty foot high dunes. The eastward crossing does have these bottlenecks which are great for team building and the climbing is great fun especially for people who don’t do a ton of desert driving and are looking for an adrenaline rush.
Coming down a moderate slip face
Mario
Our campfire, no brought wood this time.
The second weekend was the Extreme Wahiba Challenge which instead of crossing the Wahiba starts in the south of the desert and continues south. The beginning is mainly flat with six big sand mountains that you must climb to the top of. The sand mountains are made up of soft sand and are really steep which makes the going a bit slow at times. You need to give it a lot of welly and then pick your stopping spots carefully so you aren’t immediately stuck. The first few mountains Simon drove then I drove one and lots the track of our team ending up way far away from them. Eventually we found each other and continued on.
Morning in the extreme kickoff point camp.
Louisa chose to sleep out with only a cot… She was in stage 1 hypothermia with uncontrollable shivering. I met her while handing her my “camel blanket”
Rashid and his friend slept out like this with a thin blanket. I’ll stick with a tent.
Tone
After the sand mountains is a long bit of rough terrain which is like driving through a mass of 3 foot speed bumps in between 4-10 foot sand berms. While running through this area one of the shocks broke the top pin and dented the frame on my Jeep. We stopped and tried to fix it but it was clear that we didn’t have the parts needed so we decided to camp where we were and not finish the challenge. Instead we had a great night relaxing and then an easy morning before driving through the day to get to the highway. Simon drove most of the way and most of the gear was in the other cars to get the weight off the broken suspension.
Gratuitous stuck car pic 1
Gratuitous stuck car pic 3
Despite the fact that we were quitting on the challenge we had a great day of sand driving with lots of soft dunes to work through before getting to the highway. We eventually made it to Al Kamil to fuel up before heading home, that was when I noticed that the spring had come out and was sitting sideways under the car. This took about 30 minutes, two jacks and a lot of prying to get it out and re-seated. The drive home was uneventful.
