UAE long weekend- Liwa and the Empty Quarter

[Rorywg]

I've been a long time lurker on this site and have been in awe of the build threads and some of the expeditions people have put together. As someone who struggles to switch on the windscreen wipers without a qualified mechanic to show me how, it blows my mind that people are able to build awesome offroad trucks with a few dollars and a lot of ingenuity. More power to you all!

I thought I would share some pictures of a trip we did as a family and some friends over the last weekend- through the northern edge of the Empty Quarter (the Rub al Khali) in the southern United Arab Emirates. It followed a similar trip with some friends (A gentlemen's excursion!) a year ago, a 10 day effort to Southern Oman and the junction of UAE, Saudi and Yemen border. This time, I wanted my wife and kids to be able to join in the fun so we took my Raptor (quite heavily mod-ed- and serving as the mothership, carrying fuel, food and firewood), her LX570 (completely stock) and a couple of friends along for the ride in Landcruisers. Oh- and my visiting mother came as well. So three generations of my family, ranging from 4 to 73, plus 4 other adults. Not exactly the A team, but no stress and no hurry seemed like good ingredients for a few days in the desert.

First- meet my Raptor. I love it more than anything else I've driven- power, balance and lots of squeaks and rattles. But built Ford-tough, or so the sticker says. It's a 2012 Supercab with the standard 6.2l and a CAI. Upgrades include suspension (Icon bypass), winch and other bits and pieces.

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One thing- it drinks fuel. I think it manages around 8mpg in 4wd and soft sand, so I carry a few jerrycans wherever we go. This is the Raptor bed- a big old coolbox, wood, and bags of recovery gear and parts (if you have a problem in the desert here, it's a real problem).

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The morning we left Dubai, we had the usual mad scramble to get stuff ready, in the cars and on the road. It's a three hour drive to the start point, so we hauled through flat desert and tried to stay awake.



The plan was to meet in a gas station in a town called Mazaaira, at the 12 o'clock position on the Liwa crescent. It's an oasis- and full of young guys in trucks, hoary old camel farmers and traders. We met at 11. It was already pretty hot. We drove on to the start point where we aired down and got started into the sand after a sandwich lunch. Here's my LX570- my 12 year old is the co-driver and her 4 year old sister in the back giving feedback.

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The first hour or two were pretty easy- we drove from West to East, mainly on salt flats called sabkhas, linking across fairly easy patches of dunes. It's pretty- and as the sun comes a little lower, the shadows get a little longer, and it makes it even more beautiful.

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We hadn't started into the sand until 1330, so we didn't have long to drive on the first day. We wanted to stop in time for cocktail hour, and for the kids to enjoy themselves in the sand. So we started looking for somewhere to camp. Not too hard- the whole desert was empty and the views, in every direction, blow your mind.

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We stopped when we had our biggest stuck of the day- in fact of the trip. I was scouting the route in the Raptor, looking for a nice west-facing spot and thinking of my first cool drink.



And drove right into a tight little bowl. I managed to get out, but as I did, congratulating myself on a lucky escape, my wife followed my tracks. It seemed a good place and time to call a halt while we stood around and contemplated the problem.

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Problem is, we got busy setting up camp while some of the men scratched chins and other parts, and I can't find a picture. I'll track one down, I hope...

It looks pretty innocuous- but the photo doesn;t show how steep the sides were to the little bowl, and the sand was like caster sugar. But digging, and some tracks, and lots of revving and chugging. Then it was beer o'clock.

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[4x4x4doors]

Yes there is interest, please continue.
On your pictures, you might check for file format (jpg, jpeg, png and gif are allowed) and overall size of the file. Sometimes limits may be placed by your carrier as well as the forum receiving.

 

[goin camping]

Please continue. I am not only interested but intrigued.

 

[Danimal]

Keep it coming! And is your LX a 100 series? Yet named an LX570? Perhaps my eyes deceive me.

Dan

 

[RIDGE]

Keep posting please!

What air pressure do you air down to? And have you been to the States? I could be wrong, but I believe I've heard the sand over there is much finer than what we have here.

 

[Rorywg]

Hello, Sorry for the delay in replying.

The LX is the Lexus variant of the Landcruiser. It's a 2009- so I guess that's a 200 series LC. It has a terrific 5.7l V8 that produces 380bp and a bucketload of torque. it is a phenomenal car for the desert- ours has 200,000km on it and quite a few bumps and bruises, so it's ready for the sand.

We air down to 16psi for normal driving, but can go much lower if the sand is soft. We don't have beadlocks but occasionally go down to 5-8psi if things are getting sticky, but this of course increases the risk of popping a bead...

The terrain ranges from pretty firm sabhka, or salt flats, to very soft sand, particularly where the sun has been on it. I don't know what the sand is like in CA, but I have been amazed by the variation in texture and firmness we get here. Like backcountry skiing, you can experience huge variations in sand consistency and driveability in a few hundred metres, depending on the wind effect, the orientation to the sun, the gradient and so on. It's obviously much easier to drive in the mornings, when the sand is cooler and firmer, and the shadows help to spot the driving line. And the afternoons are also good, but then the east-facing slopes of the dunes tend to have been hit by the sun all morning and can be horrendous to drive on. And the lee of the dunes, where the slipfaces are found, tend to be very soft with sand dropped in by the wind after it passes over the dune ridge.

The dunes are, in places, huge- so we go quickly across the sabkhas, then try to find a route through the dunes at the end. This can take us a while- we use the Raptor to scout ahead, then the other cars follow. We follow the wind direction, in this case from West to East, so we go down the slipface, whcih is just as well- in some places there are 400+ feet high and the descents are pretty sporting. I'll post some pictures when I sort out my camera issues.

All in all, it's very confusing for a man with a small brain and the only answer is a bit more horsepower and a sharp focus on maintaining momentum, with a balanced throttle so that you can quickly but gently put on more power if you need to get out of a sticky spot.