OHV 100 - Mescalero Sand Dunes

 

OHV 100 – Mescalero Sand Dunes

New Mexico has a number of trails established especially for OHV’s (Off Highway Vehicles).  The area around Bottomless Lakes State Park has two, and the Mescalero Sand Dune area was the first that we visited to start our self-taught lessons on OHV’ing!

The Mescalero Sand Dunes is made up of more than 610 acres of dunes that can reach 90+ feet high.  No, we didn’t see any of those where we chose to start!!  The dunes are made up of quartz particles and are constantly changing, as dunes have a tendency to do!!

Here is Jeff in his Toy.  We started out weaving around various grasses and clumps of sand and vegetation.  Jeff kept going faster and faster, and it was fun, even not knowing exactly what we were doing!!

Jeff got more and more adventurous as we drove closer to the dune grasses and sort of plants that were in that area.  He asked me if I wanted to drive, but I was too busy shooting our adventure!!  The area is supposed to have large cottonwood trees, too, but we didn’t see anywhere we were.  Jeff just kept whipping around the sandy curves until…

…we got stuck in the sand!!  And it was remarkably easy to do that, so if there was a quiz on doing that, I’m sure we would have scored an A!!  After we were already pretty well buried, Jeff asked me to get out of the Toy to hopefully lessen the weight enough to let him get out (I chose not to get into the artful way he expressed that – not!!).  But, as you can see from the photo on the left, we were buried almost up to the door.  In fact, when I got out, I could have just rolled evenly out of the Toy and onto the sand – no drop whatsoever!!  Since we were fairly close to the small road leading through the area (thank goodness!), Jeff went to get the Jeep to help get us out while I stayed with the Toy.  I was originally on the other side of the Toy, in what turned out to be very deep, very soft sand, and I had quite the mini-adventure getting up to the point where I was able to stand and move easily and where I got the second photo.

When Jeff got back, he used the winch on the Toy to hook up to the Jeep, and then used that winch to pull himself out of the grip of the sand!!  You can see all the sand kicking up as he did that!  In all, we were very glad we were so close to the road, as we never saw another person out on the dunes and considered this a lesson well learned!!

Enjoy!