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@DP1011 thanks for a great drive. Had a ton of fun and the drive towards the end with those large bowls was simply amazing!! Look forward to waking up at 3:30 am on weekends for such drives :)) Thanks @Andrew John Melvill , @Rob S and @Aser for the support and constant guidance throughout the drive!

Thanks @DP1011 the change to Nahel was well worth it. Absolutely briliant lines and routing through the rolling dunes! A few minor refusals and only two stucks allowed some to get a bit of exercise. The numerous runs through double bowl and then the exit climb was the highlight and the best way to end the drive off. Thanks to @Rob S, @Aser and @Beide Worku for support and sqeep. @Jose Luis Campos, @Sam Selim, and @Abhishek Chikara all drove really well on a drive that reached near IM levels at times, a great learning experience. @Faraz94 your Haval lines were very impressive, lastly to @ChrisW, @Hani crest king and @Frans M always good to see you and catch up.

Thanks for a great drive today Freddy! It was a good opportunity for the newer members to see the camaraderie and the true spirit of this club. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. Thanks @Mark B, thanks again @Frederic and great driving from everyone. Until the next one! You can find some photos here: https://carnity.com/gallery/category/2313-newbie-faqa-to-sweihan-scenic-session-dubai-1-jun-2025/

nice drive! Small dunes making work fast on the steering , steep climbs , bumpy road, soft sand challenges, Thanks to convoy leaders and support! @Mark B@Mike M.@Frederic

Very helpful discussion. Thanks for the ideas. 😅 @Mike M.

That was indeed a great morning out! With the help of @Mark Band @Mike M. to keep the flow throughout the drive, we managed to cover quite some ground. The original plan was to exit a bit further south, but as time was moving quickly i decided to head straight to the exit. All of you drove extremely well today. I just hope the 5 door Jimney we came across made it up that hill eventually 🤣 Fantastic second lead and help by @J-P L as well. It's always re-assuring that i have you behind me to polish my tracks, and the result showed in the minimal issues. After inflation, we were approached by a driver who got his delivery truck stuck on a dirt track across the road. @Mark Band @Myrko decided to deflate again and help out, and we headed onto the dirt track to go and have a look. The driver was determined that he wanted to go further straight, but Mark towed him a few meters backwards (which made the most sense) and got him out with the winch. Thanks guys for the help and for deflating again. I was too lazy to inflate with the compressor for the second time so drove down to the nearest ADNOC Enjoy the remainder of the weekend and see you all soon in the sand again ! Check out this trail from @Wikiloc! https://www.wikiloc.com/offroading-trails/faqa-to-sweihan-216128518?utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=share&utm_source=5764925 (Faqa to Sweihan)

Another great experience.

@IshakEnjoy it partner! Feels good to have ur hands on the steering wheel yet fully control ur phone/ map, doesn’t it ? Love the picture in picture ! 😂

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.

Yeah he was a little stubborn but he did give up and came back out of the track when we were re inflating again! Even gave me a bottle of water as a thank you haha but all in all it was a really nice drive thanks again Fred

Couldn’t agree more @Mike M. , really enjoyed today so thank you @Frederic for the great lead, and as Mike mentioned it was one of those drives today where everyone was involved working together with great team spirit! My favourite type of drive thanks to everyone who joined and hope to see you all again soon 🙂

So sorry car got issues

@Frederic hi, sorry i have to drop out as kid is unwell. Have a safe drive!