St. Anthony Idaho Dune riders?

[84chevyguyid]

So just wondering who on here comes to the St. Anthony dunes and rides? I live 30 minutes from the dunes and am almost always up for a dune trip. I understand there is a trike ride scheduled on fathers day weekend this year, who all is coming to that?

Mike

[Ryanq55]

I definitely have this on my list of places to ride. That weekend in June is the weekend after my brithday so maybe if the wife has the time off we can make a trip up for a couple of days as my gift Would you happen to know off the top of your head what all id need registration-wise being from California? On another note, the wife is interested in a residency program in Blackfoot. Is that and the surrounding areas nice? Any where to stay away from if she did happen to get into that residency? I see Idaho Falls looks like the nearest somewhat larger city...and St. Anthony's is around the corner eh?

[84chevyguyid]

I talked to the BLM office here and they said if you are registered in your state then you are good here. I will pm you my number and we can chat about the residency thing some evening.

Mike

[hatc200x1]

Me and my trike crew plus some quads and bikes are heading out there for the weekend and the week after... Most of the people that go to it are not on 3WW. There on Facebook and are on 3Wheeler.org....

[84chevyguyid]

Whats the facebook page called?

[Rustytinhorn]

St. Anthony is a blast with its tall bowls that flow right from one to the other. I'd like to get there again when it's not covered in snow. Maybe this summer...

[Rustytinhorn]

[84chevyguyid]

What part of Utah? Where do you guys ride down there?

[Rustytinhorn]

What part of Utah? Where do you guys ride down there?

I'm in Northern Utah, Brigham City area.
I ride Little Sahara Sand Dunes and St. Anthony a bit since they are both the same distance from me. When I can I do a lot of trail riding in northern part of the state. I'd like to venture south some more and hit up Moab, White Wash, Coral Pink, and Sand Hallow sometime, maybe next fall.

[84chevyguyid]

How does Little Sahara compare to St Anthony?

[Rustytinhorn]

I really enjoy both locations. In general, I find Little Sahara to be more technical riding and St. Anthony to be more speed oriented and free flowing. Acreage-wise, Little Sahara is much larger.


St. Anthony-
The large dunes and bowls on the western end of St. Anthony are good for high speed dunning. The bowls are very large and well rounded, and the dunes are tall and well connected. The transition from one bowl to another is very smooth, and makes for a very free flowing sand dune ride, where one can use the momentum from one bowl to the next. In general, everything is tall and and wide with lots of room to get up excellent speed.
The sand feels firm. Good traction even with knobbies.
The dunes on the eastern portion of St. Anthony vary from small to medium sized dunes. There is a mix of bowl and technical riding, but fair to moderate speed can still be made if following the "sand highway" markers through the dunes.
Camping is fairly restricted unless you are willing to pay an arm and a leg to camp in the "improved" campground near the lake. As of last time I was at St. Anthony, access to the dunes was free via a day use parking area. On the far east side of the dunes there was free camping available right off the road on the dunes provided you had 4x4 vehicle, (this is my preferred spot) but there wasn't a lot of room to chose from. I've since heard that another campground has gone into business near the lake? I've also heard that the day use parking area now charges a daily fee as well? But you already know all this.

Little Sahara-
Little Sahara contains a good blend of hill climbing, bowls, technical sand dunning, and sand trails. Sand mountain has very tall and steep areas for hill climbing and is a very popular spot to drag race. The dunes directly on the back side of Sand Mountain can be fairly large and tall, but require a bit of advanced planning to transition from one to another with fair speed. The majority of the bowls are half-bowls.
The sand feels looser, it flows more easily than the courser sand of St. Anthony.
The remainder of Little Sahara consists of medium sized dunes that can be technical in nature (in a sand sense) with lots of variation in dune shape that is fun and challenging. There is not a lot of room for speed in the more technical dunes.
Little Sahara also offers trails that will run along the side of the dunes (and in and out of the dunes as well) that are a lot of fun to ride.
There are three main camp areas inside the dunes to choose from with each having a lot of room and many trailer-parking or tent pitching choices. The only camping area without trees is Sand Mountain. There is a daily fee for admission to the dunes and can get expensive quickly.

[84chevyguyid]

Hey thanks for the info on Little Sahara. Yeah camping does suck at St Anthony. Egin Lakes is the best spot to stay as its the center of the dunes but it costs a ton of money to camp there. I am closest to the west end of the dunes but the parking spots are all on the sand and its pretty tough to get off the road with a camper and not get stuck. Actually I dont even know if its legal to stay overnight there or not. I will have to make a trip down to Utah this summer and check out Little Sahara. Are the camping spots always full on a normal weekend or is it not too bad to get a spot?

[Rustytinhorn]

It's kind of hard to say. I went in the first week in october one year and first week in november the next year, the one time it was packed, and the other time it was completely empty. Right now it's not bad. Sand mountain had quite a few people when I was down there last Saturday, but the campgrounds still had a lot of room.
Only one of the campgrounds has an actual limited number of paved camping stalls. (And how many that is I'm not sure because I don't ever stay at that one.) The other campground (White Sands) is pretty much a large area amongst the trees that has been designated as a large camping area. This area has three "loops" that run amongst the trees you can camp in, or you can camp anywhere up and down the road as well. This is where I always stay, and I've always stayed one of the loops, and I've always been able to find a spot, although I typically go during the week to avoid the crowds.
I imagine the loops will fill up when it's summer and the weather is nice, but there are lots of trees around, so it's a matter of how far off into the trees you want to drive to find a nice spot to camp.

Hope this helps.

[Rustytinhorn]

Here is a link to the BLM Brochure for Little Sahara. It has a map of the dunes, the camping areas, and a short description of each camping area on the last page.
http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medial...e%20e-file.pdf

[84chevyguyid]

What was the temperature there when you were there? No snow? I tried St Anthony last saturday and while the big dunes are bare looking, there was too much snow in the shady areas to really go anywhere still. Where I live the snow has been gone for awhile but at Egin there is still snow in the fields. I went on the east side just past the sand resort and tired to putt around on a few hills but too much snow and kept getting stuck. I have a new motor in the one R and wanted to putt it around and get some run time on it but it didnt work.