The Janke Family

Monthly Archive: February 2010

Little Sahara

The boys and I played hooky and spent an awesome day exploring Little Sahara sand dunes with Uncle Dan! What fun! Everything i was ever taught, or ever believed about driving off-road was thrown out the window! Instead of taking it slow and keeping the vehicle horizontal, I was encouraged to gas it and race around the sand dune bowls tipped forty five degrees to the side! The boys had a blast launching themselves off the sand dunes. When we got home they were as caked with sand as the Jeep was!

Most of the sand at Little Sahara is the result of deposits left by the Sevier River, which once flowed into ancient Lake Bonneville about 15,000 years ago. After the lake disappeared, the winds that flow across the Sevier Desert picked up the sand. Sand Mountain (a 700 foot tall mountain of sand) in the middle of the dune field, deflected the wind upward, causing it to slow and drop its load of sand. The quartz sand particles fell downwind among the sagebrush and juniper around Sand Mountain creating a 124-square-mile system of giant, free-moving, sand dunes.

Here are some pictures, and a video: