A Day Trip to Sand Mountain Recreation Area

| February 24, 2010 | 0 Comments

Top of Sand Mountain on a cold February Day

I twisted my buddy Dave’s arm to make a day trip to Sand Mountain with me on February 22, 2010. We were in between storms, and it was likely to be our only window for the week. The skies were clear, but as we drove through South Lake Tahoe, the temps hit 6 degrees. Brrr.

Driving along the edge of Lake Tahoe on Highway 50, we saw a flashing sign that chains were required going over Spooner Summit. Uh oh, that’s not what we need right now. But we drove right up and over the summit without any other signs and made it down to Carson City. Then I got worried again. There was about 3″ of snow in the Carson Valley and out past Dayton. If we had that much snow at Sand Mountain, the trip would be a waste of time.

Yes, the white stuff is snow...

Once we got out to Fallon, the snow lessened and by the time we got to Sand Mountain, we were looking good. As we rolled down the road at Sand Mountain on this chilly Monday, the place was deserted. Now I have been to Sand Mountain when there are only a few camps, but never when I have had the place completely to ourselves.

Testing out the Race Teryx Suspension

The reason for the trip was two-fold. After completely the Pit Bull Tires King of the Hammers UTV Race earlier in the month, I wanted to do a bit more testing and tuning on the Monster Energy Kawasaki Teryx before our next race at Prairie City SVRA (VORRA short course).

The second thing I wanted to do is get our long travel Polaris RZR out in the sand to check out the installation of our Holz/Kroyer Stage III engine upgrade.

Both the Teryx and RZR performed very well. I can’t wait to get them back on the track and in the sand when things warm up a bit.

In the end, we drove 8 1/2 hours to spend 5 hours playing in the dunes. It was fun to get the toys out in the sand, even if it was only for a few hours.