Nena Barlow, owner of Barlow Adventures out of Sedona AZ and Moab UT, teaches a class on dune driving and navigation skills at the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area in Glamis CA.

Check out this photo-journalistic account of the Dune Driving and Navigation Class.
These photos are meant to get you fired up to get out there and TAP into Adventure……..

This was not a beginners course. It was assumed that you had some previous experience dune driving and navigating with a map and compass. The idea for this course came out of the Rebelle Rally 2016  and the fact that driving and navigating through dunes is not only difficult, but can be very dangerous.  This class was meant to hit on some safe dune driving specifics and hone in on how to navigate from one point to the next in this very challenging environment using only maps and compasses.

-The participants: This truly was not a course for beginners. There were former Rebelle Rally drivers getting ready for this year’s upcoming rally. We had former participants of the Rallye Aicha des Gazelles in Morocco. There was a professional photographer who wanted to sharpen his skills. Two Canadian race car drivers attended, one of whom is also a freelance journalist for racing magazines. A couple of friends came who had been going out on overlanding and off-roading adventures together for years and wanted to take their map and compass  navigational skills to the next level.  Another participant was a rally driver/ world traveling, photo-journalist.

We set up camp on Friday afternoon near wash 10, introduced ourselves and dove straight into day 1 curriculum. Safe dune driving techniques; getting ourselves from one point to the next by scouting both a safe line on the dunes and a safe route through them.

Driving:

-Air down: The more you air down, the bigger your “footprint”.  Like with a snowshoe, the larger the footprint, the less likely you will be to sink in.  But, you don’t want to air down too much or you might pop a bead.  I usually run at 42 psi on my 35′ Falken Wildpeak MT’s and took it down to 15 psi.  This level worked well.

-Weight: Check your weight distribution and spread it out.

-Recovery gear check: Think before you go out. What are you going to do if you find yourself in need of recovery? What sort of recovery gear do you have? (Two pairs of MaxTrax were used in a dune recovery later that day.)

-Engine: While out, be sure to check to see that you are not overheating your engine.

-Driving settings and techniques: Employ a steady throttle in 4 low. (Use this for low horse powered vehicles, and low power threshold Wranglers. Use of 4 H is fine with more powerful engines). Employ subtle steering corrections, and light, steady, use of breaks when needed; but it’s preferable to “glide” to a stop. You can use your brakes to descend a dune, but just as your steering and throttle corrections should be subtle, applying brakes should be done VERY LIGHTLY and anticipate a little sliding if you do. Nena recommends the Hill Descent Control for those who have it, and engaging 2nd or even 3rd gear when using that feature.

-Turning: When turning, make your turn as wide as possible to reduce the chance of bogging.  Your front wheels act like a rudder in sand and turning too sharply has a similar effect to applying the brakes (you chance building a mini wall of sand). If you become stuck, back out of it, trying to use the same tracks you came in on.  Use gravity if you can. Do not increase throttle or you will dig yourself in. Do NOT turn around on a dune when you have lost momentum, this could result in you rolling your beloved vehicle. Simply back down.

Dune Reading:

-Check wind direction: This affects dune shape. Know if the direction you are driving will have you driving up or down the slip face.  The slip face is the side of the dune that is formed when the wind hits the windward slope, forcing sand to blow up the dune creating a ridge. Some of this sand blows over the ridge creating what is called the slip face of the dune. This area is mushy and can be deep. It’s important to know which side of the dunes you will be traversing or working your way around when driving point to point.

-Scout your line: One way of doing this is to drive up the face, turn parallel to the ridge, and read the terrain. (This is not as easy as it sounds and will be discussed later.) How steep is the descent? How does it transition to the ground?  If you fail to do this, you could find yourself either high centered or airborn.  One of the teams at the Rebelle did not scout over the ridge of a dune. They gathered momentum, rose to the top, caught air, came down on the nose of their TJ and broke it’s axle. Unfortunately, they learned the hard way how important it is to know what’s on the other side of a dune before attempting a descent.

Another way of scouting your line, especially point to point is simply walking it out and scoping the best route.

-Minute steering corrections: When picking a line, remember that steering is best kept to a minimum, and that it is best to descend at a straight angle. Position the nose of your rig where you want your decent to be. There are some instances when you can use the fall line to determine your descent.  The fall line is the angle of the ridges that are created on the surface of the sand when water rolls down the face of a dune.

Gravity and Momentum: It’s all about throttle control

-Gravity: It’s your friend when driving down a dune. Descend steadily (4low in drive 1), and know that breaking could cause your back tires to “fish tail”, same with too much steering.  If you do begin to “fish tail”, increase your speed a LITTLE and make subtle wheel corrections to straighten out your rig.

–Gather momentum: Do this early when preparing to drive up a dune.

-Again: If you are driving up the face of a dune and lose momentum, don’t attempt a u-turn. Descend in reverse.

-Swoop-not for beginners: *Gravity is not your friend when learning to “swoop” across the face of a dune. In that case you give it as much power as you can and go faster than the pull of gravity. You are basically driving sideways….close your windows. … I ate sand.

*This is not a basic dune driving technique and is not recommended for beginners. It was presented in this course to be used when time is of the essence and you have no better line to choose to get to your destination. (It’s also really fun when you know how to do it safely.)

Dune Navigation: Sweep and Scout it Out

-A scouting technique: One that we practiced (briefly mentioned earlier) was driving up the face, turning with the line of the ridge, stopping at the top and looking over the other side in order to scout your decent. One thing to keep in mind here is that sliding may occur when you are driving parallel to the ridge. In this case, turn into the slide and power out so that your nose is facing downhill and you can drive it out. We saw quite a few vehicles get out of this bogged position by steering into the slide and executing a “bump” in torque.

Day Two: Map and Compass Navigation

This training was not only designed for people who wanted to hone in on their dune driving skills, but those who were interested in gaining further navigational skills using only a map and compass. Talk to any “old pro” overlander and they will tell you that mechanics can break, lose their signal…or just don’t always track accurately. If you acquire these fundamental, “old school”, navigation skills, you can find your way out of any mess you may have driven yourself into.

Nena demonstrated how to orient yourself, and when to mark the topographical landmarks that could be used when moving toward your desired destination.

I am not going to go into many specifics here. Like I said, this class was not intended for beginners. Frankly, map and compass navigation is more complicated than what I want to present in this article, but I will share some important points that were presented on what to consider when navigating point to point without electronic devices.

-Orient, Orient, Orient: Know where you are. If you aren’t sure, guess at your bearing before looking at equipment. Practice knowing your cardinal (north, south, east and west) and intercardinal (NW, SW, NE etc.) directions.

-Navigate: Mark your destination on the map. Mark outstanding landmarks, before getting started. Read topography. Mark waypoints.

-Route finding: Figure out how you will get there. When checking your map, cue into the topography in order to choose the best route.

-Triangulation Points: Note the location of canyons, peaks and slopes in order to mark triangulation points. (Triangulation is the process of pinpointing the location of something by taking bearings to it from two other remote points).

-Topographical Awareness: Another call to ORIENT, ORIENT, ORIENT. Continually observe the topography as you travel along your route. Observe the way the perspective of features change as you move.

-Back bearing: This has to do with tracking your location along a line in degrees by using an easily identifiable landscape feature and your compass. (If you do not understand this and would like to, no worries, check this. )

 Navigational Exercise

After the morning lesson, students broke up into small groups to navigate their way to a given point. Nena led/taught this skill by example during the first part of the class. She had the groups stop frequently to mark or calculate their positions and decide which direction they would be heading next.

I had the opportunity of sitting in with a team of women, Tracey Ristow and Thuy “Twee” Davis who will be driving in the Rebelle Rally 2017. I got to observe how they worked together, navigating a safe course through the dunes, and following their map and compass configurations in order to get to their destination.

Their communication and process of tracking their progress, was inspiring. These dunes are seemingly endless. Points of reference were few and far between; an electric power station, a particularly high dune etc. Using maps, compasses, a bit of math and working along with an expert teacher, these women learned how to better read the map, compass and how to better track their location in relation to the designated endpoint.

As the groups got closer to the endpoint, Nena gave her students more leeway to head in whichever direction they had calculated the endpoint to be. (It turned out to be a geocach pod hanging from a tree.) The thing that struck me was that after leading her group of students by example, Nena let the groups process their own navigational findings to try and reach the endpoint.  Nena had brought the class into a particularly challenging area of the dunes, one in which she and her partner had struggled when trying to navigate through it during the Rebelle Rally 2016. She processed what she and her partner had done effectively and ineffectively and what they had learned from traversing this challenging terrain. By sharing both successes and non-successes, by leading by example yet always asking for input on the correct orientation,  Nena, very effectively taught the class how to fine tune their navigational skills.

Final Note

This was a phenomenal training with a diverse and adventurous group of men and women.  I highly recommend these trainings to anyone looking to expand their off-roading skills.  For a complete list of trainings given by Nena Barlow, click here.  Nena is the owner of Barlow Adventures. They offer Jeep rentals, 4WD trainings and guided trips in both Sedona AZ and Moab UT.  Nena is a guide for RAM Power Wagon, and was sponsored by them for the Rebelle Rally.

After the class was over, this is what Nena had to say:

“I was very proud of how well everyone drove! I put them into some of the harriest and most common scenarios–failed climb, slipped sideways, bottom of a bowl, etc. And they all overcame the situations and glommed on to the techniques to drive out like bosses! They all practiced line choice, while on foot and on the move (“the swoosh”!) They mastered throttle and steering control, and even descended some huge soft dunes that they couldn’t believe at first. The nav was challenging, but we studied topography, identifying both unique peaks as well as low spots, washes, and other immobile features. We focused on establishing runways and adjusting our route plan as we traveled, based on what was encountered on the terrain. Good times with wonderful people!”

Happy Trails!

Author: Lori Palmer, Editor/Co-Founder The Adventure Portal
Photos:  Steve Schmidt, Lori Palmer, JoMarie Fecci: check out her work/play worldwide at  usnomads.org,

There are lots of ways to drive in snow, but where I live in the in the western Cascades near Seattle, the snow is deep and wet. Too deep and wet to drive through. To travel in these conditions, you need to be able to drive on top of it. In this article, I will discuss how to drive effectively in these potentially treacherous conditions.

Snow shoes are used to walk on top of deep snow in order to increase the surface area under your feet and reduce the pressure loading on the snow. This happens by distributing the weight of your body over a much larger area. If the area is big enough, the snow will support the weight of your body. This same concept can be used to help your vehicle ride on top of  snow.

But how? Big tires help, but the real key is reducing the air pressure in the tires. The goal is to get the tires as flat as you can while keeping them on the rim so they hold air.

Snow is unique because it rarely will push the tire off the rim like a rock will. However, every tire/wheel/vehicle combination works differently. On my Wrangler Unlimited I have 37” BFGoodrich KO2 tires on AEV Salta wheels. Depending on conditions, I have been able to air-down as low as 3 psi without incident. I don’t always need to go this low to get the vehicle to “float” enough to travel over the snow. The key here is to experiment until you know what works for your set up in the type of snow you are in. I usually start at 7 psi and go lower if needed. The real key is that you want to tire to go flat looking, which increases the surface area presented to the snow. As pressure reduces, the tire widens, but mostly the contact patch gets longer, like a snow shoe. Less air pressure makes the contact patch bigger. It amazes me the difference 1 psi can make. The difference between 5 psi and 4 psi on my vehicle can be the difference between driving over the snow and becoming hopelessly stuck.

How low is too low? When the tire won’t hold air, you’ve gone too far. That can be 2 psi, or over 10 psi. It depends on your tire and wheel combination and how heavy your vehicle is. There are two risks when running a tire at very low air pressures. The most obvious is having the tire go completely flat because the tire bead falls off the rim. This is called losing the bead. There are various ways to fix this, but the easiest is to simply jack the tire up so it is not holding air, use a ratchet strap around the tire to push the beads out and add air so the tire resets the bead. The second, less obvious, risk is having the wheel spin inside the tire, which takes the wheel/tire system out of balance. If this happens you probably won’t know until you air up and are driving home at highway speed. To fix this you need to have the tire rebalanced by a tire service center, which may be free depending on where you buy your tires.

Ok, you are aired down. Now what? When driving on top of snow it is important to use driving finesse. Low wheel speed and gentle torque is your friend. Think 4-low range. As the tire rotates, it packs the snow that supports the vehicle.

If you spin the tires, especially with a mud terrain tire, you will dig through this layer of packed snow and likely become high-centered. “As slow as possible, as fast as necessary” certainly applies here. If you start to spin, stop the vehicle using the brakes if necessary to stop the spinning wheel. Back up if you can, and slowly progress forward using a little momentum to get you through. If you get struck, it is best to recover the vehicle earlier than later as it is much less work to recover a little bit stuck than buried to the frame. But play around and experience will be your best guide.

Make sure when you first try this you go with other vehicles and have recovery gear. Plan ahead and turn around before it is too much. Mostly, have fun and stay safe.

Article and Photos by Ken Beahm.

Ken has spent 7 years as a volunteer for the Snohomish County Search and Rescue where he leads the 4×4 team.  He’s been an off-road driving trainer for 4 years and has been off-roading for 25 years.  For info on trainings- sar4x4training@gmail.com

This series is for those involved in vehicle-supported adventures. The content can help anyone traveling solo survive a minor or major mishap, breakdown, or vehicle accident in the remote backcountry. The series is not, however, about “living off the land” for an endless length of time. The presented information can help you remain comfortable for several hours, a couple of days, or even a week or two in the backcountry should an off-roading adventure go bad.

In the first installment in this series, we discussed the Survival Pyramid and the Will to Live. Click here to read this article

Be sure and read Part I of Survival Fire Building before reading this article.

How to Start Your Survival Fire

There are several ways to start a fire with dry, fluffy tinder. Consider carrying at least two or three of these methods in your survival bag. When one doesn’t work, another might. In my opinion, the best two ways to start a survival fire is with a disposable fluid lighter and a ferrocerium striker.

Disposable Fluid Lighter: Every survival bag should have several disposable lighters. A stormproof-style survival butane lighter (shown below left), is best. This butane lighter, made by Ultimate Survival, is refillable and worth the investment price. This is my favorite way to light fires when overlanding.

Ferrocerium Striker: There are several commercially available “sparking” survival fire-starters made from ferrocerium. Ferrocerium is a manmade metallic material that, when scraped against a rough surface, gives off sparks reaching temperatures of 1,649°C/3,000°F – perfect for starting fires with tinder.

Magnesium Ferrocerium Rod Combo: These commonly purchased fire-starting items consist of a small bar of magnesium with a ferrocerium rod embedded in one side. Typically attached is a sharp implement used to scrape fragments of magnesium and strike the ferrocerium rod. To start a fire, first scrape off a small pile of magnesium shavings surrounded by loose kindling. Use the ferro steel sparks to ignite the fast burning, high temperature magnesium.

Storm, Waterproof, or Strike-Anywhere Matches: Matches are another “must have” in your survival bag. The better ones can resist wind and water, but all are best carried in a waterproof container.

Nine-Volt Battery and Steel Wool: Touching 0000-grade (super fine) steel wool to the terminals of a nine-volt battery starts the steel wool glowing. Surround the steel wool with some tinder to get your fire going. With a bit of practice, this fire-starting technique can get fires going in short order. When storing a battery and steel wool in your survival bag, make sure they are in separate containers.

Flare: You don’t want to waste a hand-held flare that you might need to use to signal Search and Rescue personnel, but in an emergency, a flare can start a fire very quickly. If you are hypothermic and need warmth right away, use a flare to quickly start a fire, even when using moist kindling.

The Numyth Vulcan Fire Piston: This product uses air compression to start a small piece of tinder glowing. When air is compressed quickly, it heats the surrounding air to the point where a small amount of tinder, like char cloth, begins to glow. The ember is capable of starting a fire when drier tinder is added along with oxygen by blowing on the smoldering mass. I have gotten a fire to start with this device, but not without lots of work.

Making Your Fire

The following pictorial illustrates one way to organize and get your fire going. The method shown here is often taught in survival courses.
Build a bird’s nest (aka “tinder bundle”) for fire starting. Begin by laying out some organized tinder in various size piles.

Construct your bird’s nest by starting with a wide, flat base of loose bark or punkwood on which to add your finer, dry tinder. If no wide, flexible base is available, simply crisscross and weave longer tinder fibers together to build a base shell. Once the shell is made, add fine, crushed, dry material in the middle of the nest.

Once your bird’s nest is finished, you’ll need a glowing ember to place in the middle of your nest – on top of your most loose and ground-up tinder. Assuming you don’t have a lighter or match, you may use a ferrocerium striker and the backside of a knife to spark some char cloth.

Take your time once you add an ember to your nest. Raise the nest up near your mouth. Blow gently onto the ember in the nest to add oxygen, then lower it, then raise it again and blow on it. Do this repetitively until you get lots of smoke, then finally a flame. Once you begin to get smoke, watch closely for a flame to burst from the nest.

When a flame does appear, be prepared to place the nest under a kindling teepee that has lots of space between the sticks to allow oxygen to reach the new flame. Once the flame gets going robustly, continue to add your left over tinder and kindling from your readied pile. Once you have a pretty good fire going with your kindling, you may finally add fuel to your fire to sustain it over time.

The next installment of Survival and Bushcraft for Overlanders  will begin to cover the large topic of water disinfection in the field. Don’t miss this if you are thirsty. No one wants to get Giardia, Cryptosporidium, or Blastocystosis.

Words & Photos by Bob Wohlers

Bob Wohlers teaches corporate, government, and recreational off-road safety, survival, and wilderness first aid courses. Some of Bob’s corporate clients have included T-Mobile, Verizon, PG&E, and Southern California Edison. As a registered government contractor, he teaches courses for the National Park Service and BLM. Currently, Bob teaches monthly introductory and advanced recreational off-roading at Prairie City, a California State Recreational Vehicular Area (SRVA). He also organizes and leads groups on 4WD adventure tours into the remote backcountry. Find out more about his trainings and guided adventures at discoveroffroading.com.

Bob’s new book, “Live Long to Wander-Basic Survival and Bushcraft for Vehicle-Supported Adventure: To be released at the 2017 Overland Expo in May.

This series is for those involved in vehicle-supported adventures. The content can help anyone survive a minor or major mishap, breakdown, or vehicle accident in the remote backcountry. The series is not, however, about living off the land for an endless length of time. The presented information can help you remain comfortable for several hours, a couple of days, or even a week or two in the backcountry should an off-roading adventure go bad.

The first installment in this series discussed the Survival Pyramid and the Will to Live. Click here to read this article.

Watch any of the popular survival reality TV shows (Alone, Survivorman, etc.) and you’ll realize that fire building is very important. Even in a hot climate, fire can disinfect water, cook a meal, keep dangerous animals at bay, improve your morale, light your camp, and signal Search and Rescue (SAR) personnel. In cold climates, a fire can help you ward off extremely dangerous and deadly hypothermia.

To build a fire you need three important fuel types: tinder, kindling, and fuel.

Tinder

Tinder is any dry, loose, and fluffy material that can catch fire with a simple spark, electrical discharge, match, or directed heat from the sun.

In the natural environment, look for dry branches. Once you find some small branches, use your knife to begin shaving away thin, small, curling shards of wood. Also, look for:
-Dry pine needles
-Punk wood (the light and fluffy wood fibers found in the middle of rotten logs)
-Dry cattails
-Bark – small pieces that can be ground up by hand
-Dry moss and ground covering

Some of the best tinder is brought from home. Place homemade and commercially available tinder in individual zip-lock bags and keep a selection in your survival bag. -Cotton balls impregnated with petroleum jelly (the very best home-prepared tinder)
-Char cloth
-Commercially available tinder

Commercially available fire starting material or compounds include hexamine tablets and fire-starter mini-logs, bricks, squares, or nuggets. WetFire was developed for military personnel and is a universal lighting material that is odorless, easy to carry, and unaffected by wind or water. In fact, WetFire can catch fire while floating on top of the water. The only down side is that it is expensive. I have several small packets of WetFire in various gear bags I always take with me when overlanding.

Kindling

Kindling is larger and thicker than natural tinder. Kindling is dry, easily combustible material such as small sticks, twigs, pinecones, cardboard, or other dry material used to enlarge and extend a fire beyond burning tinder.

Fuel

Moving up in size, logs and other fuels are carefully added to burning kindling to sustain and enlarge the fire.

Start with smaller logs. Smaller logs will eventually become embers that can sustain the fire over time and easily ignite larger logs. Natural items considered fuel include dry standing wood, medium to large dead branches and logs, dried animal dung, and dry grasses twisted into a tight bunch.

When collecting fuel, having a hand saw can be very valuable. I have a saw and hatchet mounted on my off-road trailer. When collecting fuel, collect more than you think you’ll need. To keep a fire burning through an entire night, you will need at least 10 armloads of logs (although you can never have enough).

Ideal Size and Best Location for a Survival Fire

Keep your survival fire small – just large enough to keep you warm, boil water, or cook food. There is no need to have a large fire for hours on end. The larger the fire, the more fuel you burn at a rapid rate. Large fires require lots of fuel. This causes you to expend unnecessary calories collecting or cutting wood.

Instead of maintaining a large fire, keep on hand a large pile of kindling branches and logs to quickly add to your fire when you hear rescuers approach. Thin, green branches (fresh from a live tree) added to a hot fire during the day will produce lots of whitish smoke and be visible for some distance.

Part II of Survival Fire Building in The Adventure Portal will cover how to start a survival fire and how to make and sustain your fire. Look for it soon.

Words & Photos by Bob Wohlers:

Bob teaches corporate, government, and recreational off-road safety, survival, and wilderness first aid courses. Some of Bob’s corporate clients have included T-Mobile, Verizon, PG&E, and Southern California Edison. As a registered government contractor, he teaches courses for the National Park Service and BLM. Currently, Bob teaches monthly introductory and advanced recreational off-roading at Prairie City, a California State Recreational Vehicular Area (SRVA). He also organizes and leads groups on 4WD adventure tours into the remote backcountry. Find out more about his trainings and guided adventures at discoveroffroading.com

Bob’s new book, “Live Long to Wander-Basic Survival and Bushcraft for Vehicle-Supported Adventure: To be released at the 2017 Overland Expo in May.