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Drives other than in desert sands


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Its only a suggestion which I hope @Carnity management will consider. As summer is at its peak and driving in the desert sands after 10am is very demanding I wish Carnity management will consider hosting drives in other areas of offroading in UAE like the mountains, Umm Al Qwain mangroves at least for FB+ drivers & above. After all offroading doesn't mean strictly driving on sands. Offroading means driving where no proper paths are available. Its only a proposal for the club to consider. Most of us are proficient on sands but other areas of offroading is still left out just for the pleasure of driving on sands and I wish the club will consider this to make us all a complete offroader. 

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@Thomas Varghese thank you for opening a discussion on this topic. For me, it's not just about the heat either. As offroaders, we do need to be able to traverse all forms of terrain. Anybody who has ever talked to me knows that while I do enjoy being in the the desert riding ridges and climbing bowls, I'm more keen to do long-distance overlanding.

To this end, I've been exploring different wadi trails over the past six months when I'm not driving with Carnity. Some of the key challenges that are cropping up on this are the following:

1. Due to extreme littering and the exclave/enclave situation of the UAE & Oman borders, many of the famous wadis that we grew up knowing are all being cordoned off. For example, the famous Jeepers Mountain (Jebel Al Faya) is now entirely closed off. Wadi Sal was closed for some time, but I was able to do the trail over six weeks ago. So there isn't a good repository on which trails are open and which aren't. Most of these drives hence will be purely exploratory in nature so if we don't get any luck, we're not returning disappointed. It's going to take a lot of time to find gems.

2. Driving on rocks is slow and requires a very different mindset. In many cases, because of point #1, we will also be limited only to driving trails which are more designed for the connectivity of villages in this hills. The villagers here (unlike Omanis) don't like large crowds of cars constantly disrupting their paths. Our convoys will therefore need to be a lot shorter.

3. Camping & hiking are the biggest components of the rock-trails in the Northern Emirates. So when organizing these drives, it's important that we consider that we won't always be moving, and that our goal may be to drive to a point, park there, and do some hiking to setup camps (for the day or overnight). This requires a different form of commitment than the 5am ride & go desert format.

Last year in November, I spent over ten days exploring the Jebel Akhdar and Jebel Shams range in Oman. And the culture towards offroading there around trails, riverbeds, rocks and oases is completely and refreshingly different than that in the UAE. The locals there were also incredibly helpful in pointing me to some hidden trails and gems that I just have not gotten when I go up to Fujairah or RAK.

All in all, you can certainly count on me to get involved in setting up offroad drives outside the desert. If we can get a few more, perhaps, we can organize some under the "Wadi Campers Club" here on Carnity. If we get enough traction, then it will give more confidence for the Carnity Crew to start looking into how to create more active drives around this.

Edited by munkybizness
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Agree with you Mayank. The reason I opened the topic was to get feedback from all the club members and management. We call ourselves offroaders but in the true sense we are only partial offroaders. We do only in the desert sands. There is this area in Umm Al Qwain where there is a beautiful mangrove with a very challenging marshy terrain. Always wished to explore the area but as a disciplined offroader trained by wise Carnity marshals I can't do it alone. Couple of days back I had to take that route to reach RAK and  they looked so inviting to explore with all the trees beconing  come and explore us and see our secrets 

 

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