What? Riding in Central Oregon in November? … at 4300 ft? … in an area called Christmas Valley? Are we nuts ? Well maybe, however the dunes in Christmas Valley are worth it ! Not too far of a drive from home (approx. 125mi.), and no huge mountain passes to scale, make Christmas Valley Sand Dunes a good winter option to hit the sand .

Leaving Friday afternoon, with a goal of getting to the Junipers campground by dark, would give us time to get set up and be ready to hit the dunes first thing Saturday morning.

Yes it was risky, since last year we fought a major snow storm on the way out Saturday morning (day trip), and very wet sticky, power robbing sand.

But, I thought,  it would be a great opportunity to see if the new MUZZYS pro series exhaust made as much difference as I thought it did on bottom end wheel speed and, I knew there would be no one there and that would provide the chance to tinker with the ELKA Stage 4’s on the RZR, in virgin sand on bowls, transitions, and hip kickers, without attracting a crowd. Usually if there are people around, the Team Green MAddOG BruteForce and perfectly, completely Black RZR attract some attention.

Getting up Saturday morning to low teen temperatures didn’t curb our enthusiasm , however , it did slow us down a bit. Big fire going for the ladies, big pot of coffee perked and most of it gone, must be time to suit up and hit the dunes. (Extra long-sleeve under the ballistic jacket and my thigh length MSR riding socks).

We get the BruteForce and RZR warmed up and head out into the dunes. The sand is clean of all tracks, and on the first hit of the throttle, I realize it is a lot fluffier (that’s right fluffy-ier) than expected on the top 3-5 inches than I expected, and the Terracross HD radials won’t grip at all (to much tire pressure, DANGIT) and I am sliding all over. A quick trip back to camp to reset tire pressure (ended up with 3.5lbs frt. and 2lbs rear) and the Terracross HD’s are hooking up and pulling the front end. I do notice a burble from the engine just off accel and kind of a flat spot through the acceleration “circuit”. We climb some dunes and than head to the big bowl to run some hangers.I have to stop, pop the seat and make a couple of fuel adjustments to the MUZZYS  Digi-Tune (I leaned out the idle/cruise and brought the overlap down on acceleration)that cured the problem.

Kelly runs the RZR from one end of the cirque like bowl to the other about 3/4 ways up and I try to run it at the same level but the sand is so soft it is breaking away and sliding down from his tracks, so I lower my line and finish out the bowl. Kelly makes another run in the RZR and runs it right at the top of the razorback in the flat! It is always so impressive to watch a run like that. We make a couple more runs across the face and than peel off and head East, running across the hard pan between the dunes, it  reminds me of a get off about 10 years ago riding my ATC350X, that destroyed one of my favorite helmets (an AXO RX-5).

The hard pan between the dunes at Christmas Valley are really hard, with cheat grass “humps” and small to medium washouts, Due to the pumice/alkali sand and low amount of moisture and large amount of sun the area gets. Don’t get me wrong it is fast and fun ! you just have to be on your game to ride it fast.

Running to the East boundary the sand changes to a more dense compact, but still not wet, sand. The traction is incredible and we find a couple really fast trails to run through that head over towards the north boundary. These trails are fantastic, cutting through grass small bushes and up and down small dunes, we cat & mouse back and forth for a few miles of trails and end up at the dune looking down on the Lost Forest campground. “Hey there is someone as stupid as us” Kelly remarks, we both chuckle and look at which direction their tracks lead, Than we head the other way. Kelly has been coming out here for almost 20 years and for a “kid” he knows these dunes. We head over to “the jumps” , They are smooth downhill approach 15 to 20 foot razorbacks that usually have a pretty solid front, with a slight uphill landing. Kelly runs the ELKA equipped RZR at one of them at a fair speed and pops the top nicely, I run the BruteForce at one in a little different location and G-out the stock rear suspension right at the base, pop the top and flat land. OK I’m good to watch. Kelly makes another approach with more speed in his same spot, as he launches sky-ward I notice a lot of sand pouring from the rear, I look at the takeoff and see where the rear has had a G-out bottom-out, he uphill flat lands from way up and out and the Elka Stage 4’s soak it up masterfully. We make a very slight adjustment to lessen the G-out, but know we can’t stop it due to the angles involved. Another very fast run, still G-out on approach, Big air and distance, and big landing, The ELKA Stage 4’s are amazing !

We decide to head back and warm up some, o yeah it is still in the very low 30’s, the trip back is fast since we are familiar with the conditions from our run out. We hit a combo of trails small bowls and big climbs to get back, getting a fantastic combo of sand conditions all the way back to the campground.

Ride 2 and Kelly decides to give his TRX450R a ride. We had to replace an engine case about a month ago because of the 15 shot + of nitrous he was hitting it with (it is a 488 big bore with a 3mm Powroll stroked crank) so this would be a good test. We head out and run to the south boundary , running over some big dunes and through some gnarly flat runs that are short but fun. There is a trail that runs right by the boundary line at the south end, it has rollers, chop jumps, some very small whoops but it is FAST and straight ! And we hauled A## almost to the west boundary, turned around and hauled back past where we caught the trail to begin with before stopping to discuss how the 450 was running (not great according to Kelly, although he walked away from me at 57mph,although I did hear it stumble in mid range axcel. turned out to be a carb issue) and warm our freezing hands. We decided it was time to roll back for lunch, and headed back running a lot of  side hill loops on the dunes all the way back, what a BLAST !

Ride 3 for me was leading my wonderful wife out and into the dunes for her first time ever ! Was very slow for me but she did a great job piloting our old TRX250X on paddles over 1 small dune and up on top of a big one. At that point she was cold and ready to head back, so we did. One of the great things about Christmas Valley Dunes is the variety in riding available, sometimes all on the same dune. After getting wifey back safe, I grabbed the Go Pro snapped it on my helmet ( forgot it earlier) and headed back out to meet Kelly .

I railed back out into the dunes and climbed some big stuff and even jumped a couple times, goofing off and looking for the black RZR, I saw something way east that looked like a SxS, pinning the throttle and heading east with big slowdowns at the top of every dune ( because of the wind it isn’t a great idea to run wide open west to east, there are some huge razorback drops) I finally realize the SxS is not Kelly in the RZR  so I run back along the north boundary  through trails and washouts and grass making my own trail in some areas finally heading south to the top of one of the bigger dunes so I can see better. Kelly must have had the same idea as within 30 seconds here comes the RZR. He tells me he just got done riding the “loop”, a trail that basically completely circles the dunes at the boundary lines.

We headed back to “the jumps” to get some decent video and than decided to head back to warm up, the trip back turned into a  race and challenge as to who had bigger cojones,  we ran everything from sandy trails to
high bowl runs and hard pan flats, Kelly beat me due to a series of uphill jumps , one right after the other ,3 or 4at least,  that the ELKA Stage 4’s on the RZR soaked up like nothing, while I had to kinda regroup after the second one and get the rear of the Brute back under me .

After getting warmed up a bit we decided it was time to make dinner (bacon cheeseburgers, O yeah) and during the process of cooking it started to snow and get dark. The snow kept up until bedtime dropping a total of about 2 inches.

Getting up in the morning and talking about riding we decided that we wouldn’t take the RZR out Sunday morning because it was so wet and snowy, and Kelly had to haul it in his toy hauler. I warmed the BruteForce  up and headed out to get some photos of the snow covered dunes, the temptation to run hard and hit some big stuff was killing me, but I didn’t have on all my gear and was not going to risk it. So I got some good pictures and video of the snow covered dunes and headed back to “clear the snow” from the entrance road to the campground because there are a couple pretty healthy cambered corners. We loaded up had another pot of coffee started to plan the next trip, and headed for home.

As A sub-note :
The dunes themselves are constantly on the move due to high desert shifting winds, so it is a good idea to take a cruise around and kinda get a feel for the conditions, before pinning the throttle and just going.

As a general rule the dunes tend to razor back on the east side so going east to west is a good direction to get an idea of what is out there.