1974 FJ40 through the Sahara and sand dunes!

[MatthewMcD]

This was really a great day, the greatest dune, the greatest gassi... but even more, the driving experience in this far south area is incredible, sand is dense, dunes are high and steep, you really get this feeling of surfing on the dunes, you feel isolated from anyone else. We have done so much in just a day. That was a blast!

And tomorrow reserves many adventures and twits

I sudden rain ever an issue? In the US Southwest a thunderstorm can pop up and flood low lying areas like that.

 

[flx]

I sudden rain ever an issue? In the US Southwest a thunderstorm can pop up and flood low lying areas like that.

Not that I heard of here. And there is no trace of running water anywhere. Not sure if it's that it never rain enough or that all the soft sand of the dunes can absorb a lot of water...

In contrary, in Morocco you can see a lot of dry wadi everywhere, small ones and giant ones. And this is very well know that you should not camp in one because they can flood with water very quickly (and I was able to witness it last year).

1974 FJ40 through the Sahara and sand dunes!

I've never been in a situation where I was looking for camel tracks to stay on coarse. You have a great adventurous soul, keep at it! It's more a reinsurance of not yet be alone than a trace to follow! Particularly that camels can follow path that you really can't with a car. I want to make...

forum.ih8mud.com

1974 FJ40 through the Sahara and sand dunes!

I've never been in a situation where I was looking for camel tracks to stay on coarse. You have a great adventurous soul, keep at it! It's more a reinsurance of not yet be alone than a trace to follow! Particularly that camels can follow path that you really can't with a car. I want to make...

forum.ih8mud.com

 

[flx]

6th day in the desert

The whole team

Did you notice all the traces in the sand? Not all from us, a herd of goats and camels passed here earlier this morning... This is from the nomads, they are still a few tribes around in the Sahara and some travel all the way between Mauritania and Egypt, many of them don't hold any nationality but are are still traveling across many countries.
We will see if we encounter them later on.

 

[flx]

Here is a first camel!
His legs are attached together so he can only walk and not run. This means he is a nomad's camel, they let them semi-free like that so they can move around to feed themselves but stay around. So their camp is probably a gassi away.

Notice the goats and camels traces again.

 

[flx]

 

[janyyc]

Fantastic story as always, @flx - thank you for sharing!

 

[flx]

Fantastic story as always, @flx - thank you for sharing!

Thanks @janyyc !
Actually I should continue on the story, I have been pretty slow lately


At this point it has been 2 full days that I haven't got stuck at all, but I'm about to do the full bingo before the end of the day....

 

[wchevron]

Are there previous tracks you are following or is your group making up their own path as you go? Looks like an amazing trip.

 

[flx]

That's the little serie of group pictures in front of nice isolated dunes.

It may look easy but often the guides stop at the top of a dune to check if it's ok to get down there and often have to search a bit for the right place.

And me passing the same place, I don't have filmed much of those cases but it shows quite well the reality of driving in those tight dunes, you often have to maneuver and do multiple try. You can't always arrive directly with enough momentum on an obstacle because you have another one (and a hole) juste before and once you maneuver in the right direction you have very little space to back up and take speed.

 

[flx]

Are there previous tracks you are following or is your group making up their own path as you go? Looks like an amazing trip.

No, from Lake Erreched on day2, to the end of day8 we won't see any fresh tracks other than ours.
In the gassis, as it is old hard/compacted sand you can see some old tracks that remain visible, but those can remain for 10 to 15 years.

Note that anyway when there is a strong wind like our day1, tracks in soft sand disappear in 5 minutes... (the first day we had multiple time the case where we stopped to wait for someone to pass ab obstacle and when we restarted moving our tracks had disappeared...).

At the current point we are really remote (light blue trace):

As I was saying, the vast majority of people only go to lake Erreched (blue waterfall point) and for those that aim at Sif Es Souane (yellow mountain point) on a few reach it... And among those that reach Sif Es Souane most will go straight toward it and go back by the same track.

So right now we are as West as it is possible to go (before to be too close from the Algerian border).

For our track it's our guide that opens it.

 

[flx]

Time for the lunch break!

And exactly where we stopped we found some ostriches egg shells. Which obviously are extinct in this area for a very long time!

The 0.6b warm in the rear do really great

 

[flx]

That's a blast!



Dead wood mission

 

[flx]

Enjoy the Troopy and the view

 

[flx]

My turn, I follow his traces but pass the top slightly to the left of his tracks (always trying to shift from tracks on ascents to get more traction) and...

Ups...

As the KDJ could position up there we go for a rear pull to put the FJ40 in line, instead of digging out the front to pull from the front...
Obviously it's when you need it that they fail so the KDJ120 winch didn't work but the KDJ150 was able to take its place.

 

[flx]

Here we go again after this little cascade.

As we go through this gassi I discussed in radio that my fuel gauge is really showing empty for a while now...
It has been 2 days from the last fill up from a can but this morning my gauge was still showing a good half... so too much to take a 35L can but I really burned a lot of fuel this morning.
Guide says we are 15min from camp, only 1 last cordon of dunes, so I decide to try it... at worst if I feel I'm on fume I'll stop somewhere flat-ish and get my jerrycan out (the cans from the pickup are under everything so really not practical to get one out before the camp...).

 

[flx]

As we continue through the dunes I don't put enough gas (trying to save the little I have left...) to get over a soft one and start to slid on the side... I tried to backup to retry but it was a lost cause I was slipping on the hole... no choice.

Except I have a wall behind me and can't backup more... I also can't go forward as I have no traction, still being on soft sand pointing up and strongly canted to the right....

Not going anywhere...

So we are positioning the Troopy to winch from the right to put back the FJ40 in a position it can move...

And while we are preparing the winch we hear the FJ40 stopping.... I'm out of fuel (at least at that angle)....
Oh and I can't open the hatch to get to my jerrycan as it's blocked by sand... and anyway with this right cant it would be quite difficult to fill up from a can.

So we are good for a dead weight winching...

Good place to put to use an OEM jerrycan?

At least I have an audience

Priming the fuel pump...

 

[flx]

I think it only needed a little bit more priming but group wants to put it more on the flat to help.


And out we go.


Those things make great sand carrier...

So I'm at 2 winching and 1 out of fuel... and the day is not over...

 

[wchevron]

Are you mostly driving in 4h or 4l during the day?

 

[flx]

Are you mostly driving in 4h or 4l during the day?

I'm mostly in 4H 1st gear with a H41 gearbox. Sometime I drive in 3rd 4L if I was previously in 4L and didn't take the time to go back in high, but at some point it will always be too fast and lead to either a shock on a bump or a mistake.
I go 1st in 4L for maneuvers in holes, and 2nd in 4L for big descents.

 

[flx]

It's been a long time, in present time, the 2 last weeks were a bit rough but it's now time to finish this day of the story

Direction the camp for the night!

First thing to do at camp is still to fill up the FJ40, it's never enough

And as I'm going to bed after a nice evening around the fire... I discover the last surprise of the day...

This is the front right tire... it's probably because of the last sideway winching where this tire got dragged through sand on its side...


That's really the super combo day... 2 top of the notch getting stuck with winching, 1 out of fuel in the dunes, 1 flat tire.
That was a loooooong day