Morning Fewbie Desert Drive - The Hot Stuff Drive - Lisaili - Dubai - 25 Jun 2022

[Andrew McCarthy]

Excellent summaries from @Sunil Mathew, @Joseph Sebastian, and @Paolo Pellegrini.

Grazie mille @Ale Vallecchi for leading, the excellent communication, guidance and tuition, and (mostly🤣) patience. It was a pleasure and education to be second lead.

Many many ridge crossings, soft sand and unusually difficult light (which made it hard for Alessandro to plot a route, and for me to even see his tracks at times) made for a very testing but enjoyable outing, from which I learnt a lot.

Many thanks to @Sunil Mathewand @TT_Dubai for the support and everybody else who helped with my popout.

Onwards!

[TT_Dubai]

Great summaries of the weekend drive. As usual, plenty of valuable guidance by @Ale Vallecchi on a challenging route which had a fair share of criss crossing, technical sections and long range sabkhas. Thanks for a great drive!

@Sunil Mathew great to see you and the yellow Wrangler after many months! And even more pleasing to see you move up the ranks to Intermediate. Well done! Your instructions for recoveries is crystal clear. I also (kind of!) miss my manual Wrangler but do not miss the headaches that came with it. For the sake of my marriage 😅 I could not take the family LC on more "motivated" drives so happy to cruise around in Newbie and Fewbie. But hope that will change in the future with the FJC 😀

Great driving by all, made the role of sweep very easy. I uploaded some pics of the drive on Saturday in the Gallery. 

 

 

[Joseph Sebastian]

@TT_Dubai thanks for the pictures, very nice indeed. Nice close telephotos - were you lugging a DSLR along or did you crop? From the perspective they look like they were taken with a proper telephoto lens!

[Sunil Mathew]

1 hour ago, TT_Dubai said:

more "motivated" drives

😀😀wish you more motivated drives, and see you soon on FB+ and IM levels with the FJ!!!

[TT_Dubai]

Bingo @Joseph Sebastian! A 12 year old Canon DSLR with a decent zoom 😀. Safe driving and see you soon 👍

[Gerrit Bus]

@Ale Vallecchi thanks for a thrilling and educational drive. Now know what a pop out looks like and (theoretically) fix one. 

@TT_Dubai thanks for the tug with your virgin rope when I was properly crested. 

Fellow Dune Bashers @Andrew McCarthy  @Joseph Sebastian  @Imran Kashif  @Paolo Pellegrini  @Sunil Mathew  @Sam K 

@Federico Galbieri @Gurcharan Mehta

below a link to some Gladiator POV videos of our convoy.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/bwEBQKaq6qyLMfEo9

[Joseph Sebastian]

@Gerrit Bus thanks again for the well edited and therefore very interesting videos!

[Andrew McCarthy]

Great videos @Gerrit Bus! Thanks!

[Ale Vallecchi]

Lisaili to Qudra: The Hot Stuff - Drive Report

"Most people will not change when they see the light. They change when they feel the heat." - Rumi

I did not have this Rumi quote in mind when organizing the drive. Nonetheless, perhaps the drive managed to "change", hopefully for the better, some of the members' driving habits, especially referring to hot whether conditions on soft sand. 

As  @Sunil Mathew, @Joseph Sebastian, and @Paolo Pellegrini have already reported, all members interpreted the spirit of the drive to perfection, rising to the challenge posed by the heat of the later summer morning departure. The terrain selected for the drive went from quite technical at the very beginning, on the short and packed dunes left of Lisaili's camel track, to more open long range dunes, for most of the Lisaili plateau. Actually, having entered much closer to the camel track than usually, that is more to the north-east, the track proved ideal to cross mostly untouched dunes, in a southern direction, heading toward the sabkhas between Lisaili and Murqaab. This area was perfect for practicing side sloping, ridge riding and criss-crossing, with an uninterrupted drive, until a double pop-out stopped the convoy for a short while. The situation provided the opportunity to demonstrate the need for proper tools, such as a sturdy board and e hydraulic jack (2 tons min.), which I would recommend to any Fewbie and above, just for these kind of easily encountered occurrences. After resuming the drive, all went as well as expected, with a few detours from the usual track, and a minimum number of stops to solve some refusals and stucks (nothing out of the ordinary).

Having reached the Solar Park area in good time, we all agreed to prolong the drive to Qudra's Last Exit. The new access to Qudra from the end of Lisaili's pylon track proved a bit tricky: the loose sand from the abundant road works, as well a a very bushy area led to a couple of complicated refusals, within a few meters from the tarmac. After solving them, we managed to enter Qudra's southern quadrant, driving shortly along the bike track, and then through the very long and open dunes, dotted with some nice bowls, between the bike track and the pylons. From there it took no time to zip north toward the Last Exit. 

@Sunil Mathew, which I thank very much for both his role as Anchor, has already been very explicative in his report of the drive's main takeaways report, so I will not linger with any further recommendations. I thank @Andrew McCarthy for his clean Second Lead, @TT_Dubai for his Sweep, and @Joseph Sebastian, @Imran Kashif, @Paolo Pellegrini, @Federico Galbieri, @Gurcharan Mehta, and @Gerrit Bus for joining and bearing the heat of the drive.

As intended, the heat did not take anything away from the drive. The itinerary covered 80 Km. in 2:46 hr of driving (out of total of 4:23 hr), moving at a very brisk (better...hot) average speed of 29 Km./hr. 

See you all soon in the desert.