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Halloween...!

Awesome logo & name @Asif Hussain bhai... so @Looper's Desert Demons ghosts will try to make the Sand Runners "run scared"

Team Asif is complete now. @Asif Hussain @Cole bertasso @JohanE @Lala G @Mus_hus78 Team Asif will be officially known as "SAND RUNNER'S"

Thank you @Gaurav for this great opportunity!! @Looper i sent you my application:)

87km! Well done Team @Rizwanm2 , after the 19th it would be nice to have these above 70km drives as the weather gets better

Congratulations @Joji varghese @Rajiv Sam @Krishna R Azhar Gymkhana @Asif Hussain and @Jaro Tuzinsky for coming in TOP 6 out of all contest participants. Which means you've unlocked the GOLDEN TICKET as a backup driver. Please fill in your details through the participation form: Participant Registration Form And Get READY....!

While offroading, we cross dunes by using different methods, based on how the dune is formed and what the drive level is. Once you have spent some time in the desert, you will slowly start to pay more attention to the dune formations and how we cross them. Once you reach Intermediate and Advance level, you'll need to start learning how to read these dunes in order to navigate and create your planned routes in the desert. As a rule of thumb, the prevailing wind in UAE is blowing from a North-Western direction to South-East direction from 10AM onwards. At night and in early morning it will be reversed and blow from the South-East to North-West. This is something you should remember and you will notice when you zoom into certain areas with your navigation app (Google Maps, Gaia, MotionX, Mytrails,...) you will notice that the wind from that side has caused the dunes to take on their shape. This is a general rule and will not always apply, as you will see that in certain areas where wind is coming from different directions, you will see for example "star" dunes appearing. There are different types of dunes which are separately described below. As you can see in below picture, a dune is formed when the prevailing wind blows on a mound of sand, where the grain will move into the wind direction and create a ridge. The sand which falls on the other side of the ridge, creates a slipface, and this sand is not compacted by the wind. This is the main reason why we generally drive on the prevailing wind side or the convex side of the dunes on the Newbie level. "A dune is a curiously dynamic creature," wrote Farouk El-Baz in National Geographic. “Once formed, a dune can grow. It can change shape and move with the wind. It can even breed new dunes. Some of these offspring may be carried on the back of the mother dune. Others are born and race downwind, outpacing their parents. [Source: Farouk El-Baz, National Geographic, February 1982] The shape of dunes is affected by things like the strength, direction and consistency of the winds; the consistency and amount of sand; the hardness of the terrain and the amount of vegetation. Below we will describe the most common dunes found in the UAE. Different Dunes Crescent or Barchan Dune This is the most common dune. It forms the shape of a crescent moon when the wind blows from one direction. We generally use the words concave and convex to describe both sides of the dune: * Concave is a shape that curves inwards. * Convex is a shape that curves outwards. Crescent-shaped mounds generally are wider than long. On the concave side you will have the slipface. These dunes form under winds that blow from one direction, and they also are known as barchans. Parabolic Dune A parabolic dune is similar in shape to a barchan, but it is just the opposite. The tips of this dune point into the wind, and its main body migrates with the wind, forming a depression between the tips. Because of this formation, parabolic dunes are also known as blowout dunes. These dunes often occur when vegetation stabilizes sediments and a U-shaped blowout forms between clumps of plants. Example of Parabolic dunes near Faya: https://goo.gl/maps/ob8xu3y8VJJvF6hk8 Longitudinal or "Seif" Dunes They are also often referred to to as "sand ridges" or "seifs". Their length can range from a few meters to many kilometers and their height from a couple meters high to a couple hundred meters high. Wind pushes the sand and forms ridges parallel to the prevailing wind direction with slip faces either side of the crest. Linear dunes are straight or slightly sinuous sand ridges typically much longer than they are wide. They may be more than 160 kilometers long. Linear dunes may occur as isolated ridges, but they generally form sets of parallel ridges separated by miles of sand, gravel, or rocky interdune corridors. Some linear dunes merge to form Y-shaped compound dunes. Many form in bidirectional wind regimes. The long axes of these dunes extend in the resultant direction of sand movement. Barchanoid Dunes These ridges are similar to Barchan dunes. They are connected in long crescentic waves as the sand supply is much greater than that which forms a Barchan Dune. Star Dunes These dunes are formed when there are several prevailing wind directions - there is a complex wind regime. Typically there are three or more slip faces, whilst the dunes do not migrate they grow in height. Star dunes are radially-symmetrical, spyramidal sand mounds with slipfaces on three or more arms that radiate from the high center of the mound. They are created when the winds blow equally from every direction, causing the sand dune to grow many extensions and resemble a star. They are rare and are fairly stable and remain in the same place. Some are landmarks with names. Example of a Star dune: https://goo.gl/maps/jRnYghQc8ACzVz6T7 With this knowledge, the next time you step into the desert, you can start looking at the different dune formations, and this will give you lots of knowledge that you'll be able to apply in the future when leading and navigating off-road drives.

Hi @Rizwanm2, Any similar drives planned for this week or next? Would love to join😊

I have given my name for Gaurav soni's team. Do i get to join for free with this golden ticket? @Gaurav

Yes, you've won a free entry ticket as a backup driver for Desert Champions Trophy 2023.

@Gaurav So I got a free entry ticket ?

Congrats @Mohit Gurnani! Take the fj on new adventures!

@Gaurav Soni might be worth checking

Hi @Rizwanm2 Thanks for the lovely training drive. I'm really looking forward to participating on the Team Challenge. Hoping to confirm availability by this week. Thanks @Abhilash Kottakkal and @Haneef Thayyil for your support on the drive. Really enjoyed all the different terrains, the towing experience and seeing how to deal with a pop-out. Looking forward to driving with everyone soon!

The Desert Champions Trophy has finally arrived and waiting to find a new home....!

To all the ones waitlisted (my apologies for the one drive per rsvp mishap), you can be sure of a spot on this event, as it’s not an off-road drive hence it’s not limited.

same thing here 🤣 even tried lighting drop out of the music trip to drop in again but wasn't fast enough. Will need to spend more time watching my kids type messages on their iPhones to become even faster 🤪

For all those who are camping, if interested please bring I a radio; for next morning about 7:00 a.m. -ish someone will lead a convoy through Route 66 to Qudra Roundabout. It will be an hour to hour and a half easy drive.

thank you guys for joining with me for this adventures drive. it was indeed one of a kind drive. due to short and capable drivers i was able to achieve all expectation from this drive. We went on high speed rampage to reach all check points in no time. im impressed with all of your performance through out the drive. specially during technical area, we were able to cover without any issues. we had all challenges thrown at us. couple of stucks, refusals, high dune crests, pop out. but with an amazing team we sort out all of them in a flash. @Abhilash Kottakkal you drove excellent behind me keeping up with speed and precision. @Arun Menon even though you had only few FB level drive experience you drove very well. @Haneef Thayyil thank you for excellent sweep duty. you handled beast of a Y62 as champ. Btw im planning for another thorough practice session next week for confirmed members. im more than happy to welcome you guys to my team please let me know if you are interested. until next time have a nice week ahead. 👍

It was my longest drive experience ever with team Carnity (87km), learned a lot and enjoyed the drive from beginning till the end. We had covered almost all the terrains such as technical dunes, big dunes, slide slopping, sabka driving, desert jungle, scenic, farm drive and lake side drive all together in one long drive thank you @Rizwanm2 . And it was so fun to achieve all the pre-assigned waypoints. We had pope-out, few refusals and stuck but we managed everything without spoiling time and it was nice learning experience too. As it was a short convoy 4 people only, personally I got chance to sweep, this is my first ever experience so I really enjoyed it @Rizwanm2 thanks for giving me the chance ☺️ @Abhilash Kottakkal you made your role very well as SL, you drove amazingly compare to all other drives. You and @Arun Menon got a chance to pull the cars those got stuck and I assume this is your first experience for the same, I'm also waiting my turn on next drives. I don't know why there is no gallery for this drive to upload images.

Looks like we are going to be a single convoy now. I once again thank you @Hisham Masaad to offer to take a portion of convoy if necessary.