Big Red....1987

Gday Bonz
Can Little Wes and I come with you?
Murray

You are more than welcome Muz, but be prepared for a few tears, mine of course.

So Sir Bonz,

You are buying a Mitsi before that trip I guess, nothin worth than driving all that way in a Neeeeesan and having to take little red ...LOL

I had one Blaze, loved it and sold it

And the cardboard shadow

Come on Willem,

when you bought the suzie you got the shadow as an optional extra.LOL

I drove the left track loaded with camping gear in September - not overly difficult.

Depends which'left' track you are talking about....I doubt very much if you got up the one I'm thinking of ...this one would comes out at the peak where the goofers stand to watch - the track stopped short of the summit by a good 50 metres and there was no indication that anyone had made it further. One of the guys with us in a 4.2td 100Series couldn't make it to the end of the tracks even after several attempts. Never saw anyone else succeed either. The sand was super soft so if you did get over at this point there must've been a bit of rain to pack it down.

Patrol, I can understand what you are talking about.

Totally depends on previous 3 or 4 weeks weather. First time I drove RED it was totally impossible from the Western side with an 8 foot sheer sand drift. We did it from the east and SWMBO screamed as we dropped over the edge. The next time we visited I cruised over in High range. So as I say IMHO it all depends on conditions. Give it a try sometime after a Hot windy Summer, and chances are you may have a different opinion of RED.

The left track in the pic directly below this thread is the one we did. There's only really three main approaches from the West. We drove them all, and pulled a Navara off the crest of the left track after he chose to brake just a little early and bottomed out.

Just found photos - post up your email address so you don't have to 'doubt' any more.

Cheers gbc would love to see them.... patrolpete22 at gmail dot com

wow - it does not look anywhere near as imposing as it did in 1987.

I get the feeling the outback is disappearing under a deluge of us weekend warriors.

David

My pic is taken further back so without a surveyors measurement from some fixed reference point down in the swale, it's hard to estimate if any height has been lost. If anything that big windblown dune in the middle looks higher above the vegetation. And yes it has been a lot drier in the past 5 years than in the 5 prior to 1987. So what can we do but tread as lightly as possible as we 4Wd about the country. Unfortunately too many don't as many have mentioned on this forum.... W

Later photos were 2004 and 2006

Gday Phil,

Starting to look like a rail yard with all the tracks. Last time we visited the chicken track heading out at 10oclock was harder than the main one.. I just wonder why people decide to make extra tracks, if you cant make it over, go around via the liitle Red Hill.

As mentioned above in posts we hit it once after 18mths of no use years ago, with a huge sand drift, so had to do it from the East, after a cpl of weeks of vehicles doing this it would have been pushed down enough for a westerly approach.

By the way we had a good run around Googs and Gawler Ranges, except fopr strong winds.

2004 looked like this

Image Could Not Be Found

with a hell of a bump right at the bottom of the hill.

Big Red is enjoyable, thats for sure. Id would have to agree with what you say about some beach dunes (WA North of Perth Coast used to have a couple of rippers)- This weekend at Cape Flattery we tackled some very daunting Silica sand hills in the middle of the day.Thought they had the best of me for a while :-)

Big Red is very doable first up when you are at the right tyre pressures, some of these beach sand dunes take multiple attempts and a screaming run up.

The problem with big red as I see it now is the amount of traffic that take it on with the wrong tyre pressures. Dont know about you, but that big red sand hill was very corrugated and thus very hard to keep a constant speed.

Cheers

Tony you are spot on with regards to the corrogations caused by traffic volumes.

Colin, I had a huge grin from ear to ear when I first drove this dune which slowly turned to an "overated" feeling that night around the bar at the B/ville Pub (;-) lol!!), but now it has been a while the Grin and feeling of accomplishment still resides and the tale of how big and difficult it "really is" gets better and better hehehe. It is by no means an easy feat due to the millions of gibber stones, corrogations and numerous other barriers to try and prevent you from even getting to the start of the feat let alone the dune itself...I am sure you will get over the "dissapointed" stage and glow in the accomplishment over time. I reckon like me your gearing would have made it seem easier than it should. I was the only one in our group of three to tackle and beat all three tracks leading up the East face (3rd low was as low a gear selected) much to the dissapointment of my big trip buddy Ross H who can't say his failure was through lack of trying hehehehehe I have a few pics of him with no further forward momentum on one track of that dune hehehehehe.

I think from Willem"s photo, the size of the dune does seem much larger in 87 than it did when I crossed it in 2007.

Thanks Willem good photo.

Regards to all Trevor.

Errm, when I look at the pic, I see 3 tracks...........

;-))

Errrm, when I look at the pic, I see 7 tracks...... 4 at the bottom, 1 heading Nth, 1 heading Sth, 1 heading West, 1 heading West/nth/west...... then 1 hardly used track going over RED heading out at about 2 oclock .... then the other 2 main tracks I mentioned heading straight over the top, that I believe 98% of readers would have known I was referring to.