maxingout
Adventurer
EXPEDITION TO THE ROCK WALL JOURNAL AND THE SAND RAMPS OF THE EMPTY QUARTER OF SOUTHERN ARABIA
The Empty Quarter is one of the largest sand boxes in the world. Every time I think about playing in the sand, I want to go to the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia.
Big sand and endless dunes are a giant magnet for my Defender 110 Land Rover. I don't mind driving in wadis, and exploring in the mountains has its rewards, but driving in sand feels good all the way to the bone. A week-long expedition to the Empty Quarter is an instant cure for depression. The moment I drive in sand, the bad stuff goes out of my mind, and in comes the good. I don't know why sand makes me feel so good, but it does. It's an undeniable fact of my life.
Pristine sand dunes take me back to a biodegradable era where everything is natural. In deep desert, plastic bags blowing in the wind and piles of rubbish do not exist. And best of all, the white noise of civilization is nowhere to be found. The sand dunes of the Empty Quarter are the only place on planet earth where I have experienced total silence. If I hold my breath and do not pollute the environment with the sound of my breathing, I am in total silence. I feel like I am standing on holy ground.
Some of our expeditions into the Empty Quarter last a full nine days, but on this trip we spend only three or four. This expedition is special because we plan to visit the petroglyphs of the Rock Wall Journal in southern Arabia after we regain our sanity in the Empty Quarter.
Packages of food carry printed labels that list the nutritional value of each ingredient found in a packet of food. The labels state the minimum daily requirement for each ingredient inside the package. Some people consume supplements to insure that they get their minimum daily requirements to maintain robust health.
As far as I am concerned, a couple of days in sand is the absolute minimum requirement for any trip into deep desert. If I don't get several days of sand, I feel like I am missing out on my minimum daily requirement for sand. Sand clears the mind and puts things in perspective. It's the best spa on planet earth.
A satellite photo from a couple of hundred miles in space focuses on our playground. What's our plan? We will drive and camp in the endless dunes. Where are we going? Wherever we want. How long are we going to stay? For as long as we want.
The truth is that we are going to stay for as long as it takes to get our minimum daily requirement of sand. Then we will turn west toward the Tuwayq escarpment, ride a sand ramp down to the desert floor, and travel to the Rock Wall Journal where we can study petroglyphs of southern Arabia.
We enter the southern half of the Empty Quarter though a convenient break in the Tuwayq escarpment and head southeast until we arrive in big sand. Rolling mountains of sand give way to broad valleys separating each line of dunes from the next.
Rolling sandy vista remind me of the massive ocean swells of the Pacific Ocean. Our catamaran rode those swells for months as we sailed from Panama to New Zealand. The difference between the Empty Quarter sand and the Pacific Ocean is that on the ocean, the swells and waves are moving. In the dunes, the swells and waves of sand are frozen in time. It's as if God told the sand dunes to stop, and then set us free to cruise on his ocean of sand.
Our three vehicles tuck in behind a frozen wave of sand to spend the night.
Our Defender 110 is anchored in the lee of a twenty foot wave of sand. The tent is up, and after an evening around the campfire, we will sleep soundly in the total silence of the Empty Quarter.
Since we will be in deep desert for a short time, we are carrying only four jerry cans of fuel on the roof rack rather than the usual eight. Five more cans of fuel are stored in a box inside the vehicle. Three boxes of firewood are on the back of the roof rack.
On trips into the Empty Quarter where there is no fuel available for a campfire, each vehicle is responsible for bringing enough wood for two or three campfires. We will supply fuel for three campfires on this trip.
When we have transfused enough sand into our veins, and it's time of leave, we turn west to escape the Empty Quarter. This is not the usual exit from the Empty Quarter, because there is a 500 foot tall escarpment that stands in our way. Sand dunes run up to the Tuwayq escarpment, and sand spills over its edge to the desert floor below.
You can't exit the dunes anywhere you want. You have to locate a sand ramp that takes you over the edge of the escarpment and down to the desert floor.
We don't know the exact location of a sand ramp that will do the job for us, but the desert knows, and without much prodding gives up its navigational secrets. We simply locate a bedouin track that heads west, and follow it to the escarpment. If it's a big track, there is a good chance it will lead to a place where we can descend the escarpment. It's a chance that we have to take unless we want to drive in the dunes for a couple of hundreds kilometers further to the south where the escarpment finally ends.
Not all sand ramps are up to the task of getting us down from the limestone Tuwayq. Only a few of them rise all the way to the top of the escarpment and provide a safe way to descend.
As we head further south and west in search for a good track, the valleys between the dunes flatten and reveal the limestone bedrock on which the massive dunes reside. The closer we come to the edge of the escarpment, the wider the valleys become.
Close to the edge of the Tuwayq escarpment, the dunes diminish in size and the limestone of the Tuwayq is covered by patches and sheets of sand. Sand spills over the edge of the escarpment creating irregular sand ramps most of which never reach the top of the escarpment. If you are unlucky, you may have to inspect four or five sand ramps before you locate one that lets you descend to the desert below.
In the foreground, an agricultural pivot makes the desert bloom. A big green pivot puts a smile on the face of a thousand camels.
A Bedouin track leads us to a sand ramp that we hope will take us down from the top of the escarpment.
Satellite photos are awesome. The arrow points to the place where we can descend 500 feet to the desert floor below.
The satellite photo is spot on. The groove in the escarpment seen on the satellite photo translates into a real world photo of our sand ramp. The large rocks on the right side of the sand ramp show up nicely on the satellite picture.
Bedouin tire tracks heading down the sand ramp confirm that it will take us to the bottom of the Tuwayq.
Through binoculars we can see tire tracks at the bottom of the sand ramp. The lower half of the ramp has firmly packed gravel and sheet sand. The upper half of the ramp is soft sand.
We definitely can drive down the ramp, but there is serious doubt about whether we could ever turn around and drive back up to the top. This could easily be a one way trip.
We line up our vehicles at the top of the ramp ready to make our descent. The white limestone of the escarpment is actually a massive reef that extends more than 900 kilometers to the north. Fossilized sea shells and coral are found in abundance on the top of the escarpment.