How was Buttercup or Gordon's? The weather was good. Sand a little wet. Any crashes that you have info on? How did it go for you?

gordons was good busier than i expected. awesome night rides from the full moon. good drags saw some buckshots doin wheelies was a good show. Sunday they didnt use the same place for the drags they moved it 200yds west.

Buttercup was pretty busy. Lotz of drunk *****s running around throwing beer! The wet crap was okay but got tired of the buggy rides cuz of all the wet sand getting thrown up at my face. Got lost for a couple hours but luckily found a Border Patrol and he took us back to the 8. Overall Prez Day was pretty sick.

How do you get lost in Buttercup?

You'd be in a world of hurt at Glamis!


Vor

I'll admit I got lost at Buttercup Once. It was night...with 60MPH wind gusts creating "sandout" conditions where I couldn't see even 20-40 feet ahead of me.

I was trying to find Matt who was stuck in the dunes in his suburban and needed a tow. He sent a friend and my sister back to camp to get me....but this was before we had GPS...and the friend took a cooler with him for the walk back. By the time he got back to camp his directons were less than helpfull....he kept telling me Matt was stuck in the second valley and I had to go further south...and was drunk enough to be VERY adamant about it.

I actually did have a GPS (but Matt didn't) and this friend was insisting that he knew the dunes better than the GPS and that the direction the GPS claimed was north was definately NOT north

After two hours of following drunken directions I spotted a BP and asked him to help get us back to the highway....even while following the BP the friend insisted that we were going the wrong direction and were going to end up in mexico and no at the highway.

Given the horrible conditions and lack of directions to the stuck vehicle and knowing that Matt had his GF and a full cooler with him we decided to wait until morning to go looking for him. Unfortunatly we didn't know there was no food in that cooler and his hypoglycemic GF needed food bad - so they broke the "Stay with your vehicle" rule and started hiking. They ended up at the canal where another BP found them - and interrogated them (since they were hiking) and then refused to give them any water or a ride back to camp even though they had a water dispensor in the back of the truck.

When we eventually found Matt he was about 100feet from the 1st valley at Buttercup right where I thought he would be but the drunk friend insisted was no where near the place they got stuck.

That was also the day I took my brand new tent out for the first time and the wind promptly broke both poles - leaving me and my sister sleaping under a tent that kept falling in on us.

It was quite possibly the WORST night in the dunes we've ever had...on the upside we decided to make sure that anyone in our group who went out would ALWAYS have a GPS from then on so if they had to hike back for help they could actually lead the rescuers back correctly instead of on a wild goose chase.

I got lost at Buttercup once also. It was the weekend after Thankgiving in 1977. We had just had a week much like the one we just went through with rain for a few days. There was a group of 4 ATC 90's with 2 people on each one. Two of the passengers were from the mid-west and never even saw a sand dune before. We were out during the day and the dunes were very wet and lots of fun. Remember that wet sand is a friend to an ATC 90. Right before sundown we started out on a long ride; went to the Big Bowl, then back to the 3rd valley, and over to the Mexican Blow hole. It was way dark by then and kept getting colder. Next thing you know we got MAJOR fog. We couldn't see 10 feet in front of us and the headlight made it worse. We headed in what we figured was North and duned what seemed like forever. Of course with the ATC 90's we couldn't just straight line it, so we were weaving all over the place to get through the bowls and over the hills. Just when we were about to give up and wait the fog out, we saw a dim red glow ahead, up in the air. After shutting the motors off we heard what sounded like a VW motor. We headed for the dim red glow. It went out right before we saw the reflection of taillights. It was our camp! Turned out, someone had lit a flare at the top of Comp so he could see it while running up the hill in his rail. Talk about perfect timing!

Big crowd at Gordon's. More than New Year's or Turkey Day. My only beef was the large number of "camp racers". Why do these pin-heads have to open up in the flats ? Have some brains... keep it slow & safe til you get to the sand highway, please !

i was at gordons also i thought there was more than new years but no where close to thanksgiving

I was there too!! Here is my take the weekend from another post, I'll post it here in case you missed it...

Just got back last night from the south dunes and I have to say it was an eventful weekend.

Unfortunately, we came across two accidents. The first was by the canal where we were camped. They were trying to teach a lady how to ride a two-wheeler, she got on the bike and gripped the twist-throttle too hard when she let out the clutch, the bike wheelied(so I hear) launched her over the embankment, she endo-d and the bike ended up in the canal. She was pretty beaten up, it looked like her teeth ate through her upper lip and I think some broken bones. I send wishes for her speedy recovery.
Then right after that accident we headed up to the sand drags, we were not there two minutes when there was a collision at the end, apparently a jeep collided with someone on a bike. I do not have any other details on this one, but I do not think it was too bad(considering what COULD happen if you are run over by a jeep)

Next came something pretty cool, LEO'S approached the starting line of the sand drags, everyone started booing because they thought they were going to stop at the start line and close off the drags due to the accident a few minutes before. WELL THEY DIDN'T, instead they stopped, lined up and HIT THE THROTTLE!!!!!! It was the single coolest thing I have ever seen LEO'S do:D!!! The crowd cheered down the whole line!!! I took it as a show of support to the dune community and thank them very much.(They looked as if they were having fun too)!!!

Our group came across a $90,000. SandLimo car that was launched off the dirt bike jump between Patton Valley turn-off and the sand drags(or so I hear, I came across it but did not stop, I was to anxious to shoot some bowls ) I guess there was pretty good damage to the car
If anyone knows anything else about this let me know...

And lastly as we were pulling out yesterday, they were checking and ticketing for no camp ground passes coming off the canal road! This was a first as normally they check point vehicles coming out of dune buggy flats before the bridge. Glad to see that they are keeping it fair. Our pass was in the window so we were waved right through, didn't even hold us up a minute.

We had a GREAT weekend(though hillshootin' sucked because it was pretty choppy coming back down due to the rain)
But we had some great bowl rides and a GREAT time was had by all
Hope you all were safe and had a GREAT trip too!!!!

Erin

There were ALOT of people there, second to only T-day weekend

[Just your friendly moderator trying to fix the post time so BG can post again]

We were at Gordons from Fri. morning till Tues. morning. Real crowded from friday till sunday. Most people were gone by monday around noon. The wet sand did allow people to camp farther out without getting stuck.

I also think there is too much "camp racing" happening in the flats. The sand highway is right up the ridge! Go up there if you feel the need for speed! All of us with kids riding around camp would be able to relax much more 8) The Robby Gordon wannabes are the worst. They think because they have a 3" body lift and an exhaust system they can run WFO like the big boys. Most of them are young kids with their dads trucks and don't know how to react in a panic situation. Some are also drunk as a skunk and shouldn't be driving anyway. Please go to the sand highway!!! We usually avoid the holiday weekends for this reason.

Also there was some thieves running around stealing coolers, gas cans, and they had some poor kids XR50 stuffed under their trailer. >:< The rangers somehow found out and busted their asses!!. Way to go rangers!! The whole camp soon left. That type of B.S. is the worst. I hope those people went to jail and had to stay till tuesday due to the holiday >:<

We had a nice trip to Algodones for tacos and ICDBs on Monday

Overall a good trip.

mmmmmmm taco's & tecate's the best part of my drive home .how was the line coming back over the border ?

We came back across around 6:00PM. No line. Walked right to the customs officer. Across in less than 2 min. Also smuggled a couple of real Cohibas back for that night at the campfire :mrgreen:

:?: BigDaddy- do you have any contact info for the rangers ? I lost a nice tool kit out of my golf cart on Sat. night. I assumed it fell out in the dunes, but now I'm thinking maybe they were ripped off. Perhaps they might have been recovered.

Mugman, I don't know how exactly to contact the rangers. I know when the rangers arrested the people, they had piles of coolers and gas cans. Don't know about toolboxes. Check the recent post under "Goodie bag found" in this forum.
Maybe next time you go out you can ask the rangers about it.

Anybody else know how to contact the BLM about this? :?: