Day 3: Self camp - Dumont Dunes
Day 3: Self Camp- Dumont Dunes
Day started out lazy in comparison to the days prior. Adri had the luxury the night before of plotting in the privacy of her tent and without time constraints. Being a night person proved to be helpful this one day. I got to take my time and bleary-eyed did the enduro math the night before. Feeling pretty low about our enduros thus far, I made sure to double check the math and go over the notes carefully with Adri, even writing down notes that I wanted her to tell me as we were driving.
It was a precision timed enduro right out of the gate. Super dusty, morning sun in your eyes, and a FAST winding track. The teams were only one minute apart (which I think was unsafe and an error on the part of the rally TBH). The first 10 minutes we nailed it! Totally on top of it and feeling good. Then there was a sharp turn which turned into a separate track and we totally missed it and then got stuck behind 2 other teams…. Completely blew our chance to even get a partial score. Not again!
Got to throw it in the back seat and keep going. I am glad that I didn’t get lost in my thoughts and stop paying close attention to the track. In the dusty early morning scorching Nevada sunlight, we came around a corner maintaining a pretty fast speed and <POW> a team was changing a tire on the side of the trail (but still in the road). It was a very dangerous situation. Another team had narrowly missed hitting them and hit the berm of the trail and wasn’t so lucky. I really wanted to stop and help them all but I honestly couldn’t stop. Any more cars parked there would have caused more of a hazard, so I had to keep going. What a mess. I felt grateful we hadn’t gotten in an accident but at the same time, felt pretty badly for the people involved; their day was over (the mechanics would fix them up; not all was lost, but talk about frustrating).
Once we were done with the enduro, we aired up for a long transit on the freeway. I couldn’t be more grateful to take off the helmet and zone out for a few minutes. We had been so focused the past few days, we had hardly had a conversation that wasn’t business. The transit took us through Las Vegas and then to Death Valley where I had never been before. Super excited to see the area, we chased a few check points doing pretty well and keeping a good time. This day we were in the pack and not feeling too rushed.
We got back on the road and headed towards Dumont Dunes. We arrived and immediately ran into our good friends again. What a welcome sight. It was our first time in the Dunes. We had one checkpoint to try and get before heading into base camp. Adri found the point on the map and described to me the route. At this point, dunes driving was pretty new to me and I didn’t know what to expect with where the point was located. In my mind it was at the top of a huge pile of sand, but no… it was an easy to get to location with vegetation. The Jeep handles great in the sand and the Pirelli tires float flawlessly when aired down. This short dune experience gave me some insight onto how we needed to improve our communication in the car and I needed to adjust my personal expectations for how I would be directed. Dunes driving is fast and uncertain… not precise and not slow (the two things I thrive in).
We headed toward basecamp and maybe took the wrong way in? I don’t remember being offered the Jimmy Lewis challenge… we were confused. Tried to figure a few things out then resigned to the finish line and fuel truck. Long day… started out frustrating but started to look up. The Dumont Dunes Basecamp was absolutely stunning. I could have stayed there for weeks. Warm, soft sand with extensive mountain views. It really felt like home.
