Well my buddy from work finally got his older Jeep running reliably, so we decided to go to Silver Lake State Park and wheel in the dunes. I had never been there before, but he had several years ago. When we arrived we had to air down, which is absolutely critical if you want to be able to go anywhere in the super soft sand. I tried out my new JT Brooks deflators, and aired down to about 11 psi.
Then we got out into the sand.
Since my buddy had been here before, I followed him around at first to get the lay of the land. We played around on some of the smaller dunes to get a feel for it.
Pretty nice views:
Then we got braver and decided to try some of the larger dunes. When I saw this, I said “We’re going to drive up that!?” I really didn’t think my heavy, low powered truck could make it.
My buddy went first and made it up no problem. (He swapped in a V8 engine, so he had plenty of power in his light Jeep.) Here I am at the bottom of the dune, getting ready to make my run. It gives you some idea of how tall these dunes are, but the pics don’t capture how steep they get at the top. (Yes, some idiot parked his motorcycle right in my chosen line.)
I went for it. I got a good running start to pick up some speed and momentum. About 1/3 of the way up:
About 2/3 of the way up I started slowing down, but was still moving:
Almost there. The truck was really digging at this point, but still moving.
Made it! High revs and 4-Low were the key to success. Perched at the top:
Looking down the length of the top edge of the dune, you can get an idea of how steep and narrow it is. If you do make it to the top, you have to be careful not to fly over the peak of the dune.
Views from the top. Dunes, dunes, and more dunes.
Lake Michigan off to the west:
After that we made several more attempts at some of the taller dunes. Sometimes we made it, sometimes we didn’t and had to back down and try again. It was a lot of fun. Here are a few pics of my buddy’s Jeep making a run at another large dune:
Overall, I was quite pleased with my truck’s ability. My truck being so heavy and with the little motor didn’t give me the best power-to-weight ratio, but it hung in there with the Jeep. I’m sure the supercharger helped some too.
The only thing that concerned me was that sometimes when I got close to the top of a dune, and I let off the gas because I wasn’t going to make it, the engine would shut off. My buddy said it was because of the large load on the motor. The first time it happened, I freaked out and thought I blew up the motor, but I put it in park and it started right back up. This happened several more times, but would always restart, and I could back down the dune and try again. The truck ran the 150 mile trip home just fine.
Does anybody know why it shuts off like this? Or was I doing any damage to the motor?
