Last year’s Wahiba Challenge did not end up well for me, so there was a lot of thinking whether I should go for this year’s Extreme Wahiba Challenge (EWC) or not. Two weeks before the date we went to have the Halloween party on the dessert and I tried a few dunes – instantly all the doubts were cleared and a full joy returned – with a small nudge from my wife, a decision was made!
First, a few words about the EWC itself. In short, it is a no-joke dessert crossing with 4-5 cars (short to medium base cars only – due to their wide approach and exit angles 4 door Jeeps qualify too) per team working together and independent from other teams with objective to follow the given route and exist the desert before running out of fuel, water food and needing to be rescued – more about that later. It is not a timed competition per se (although you can win some prize for being the fastest) but the challenge is to finish it as a team in 2 days.
EWC is organized by the Offoad Ras Al Hamra Club (ORAC) once a year and requires prior theory training as well earlier participation in the the Wahiba Challege.
The route was North to South with total length of about 70km in the sand.
The idea was to reach somewhere between IP7 and IP9 on Day 1 and then finish the rest and exit on Day 2.
We had 4 cars and 7 people in our team – 3 Jeeps as shown below (yes a white Rubicon roaming in the back) and 1 Nissan Extera.
In the email from the organisers it was mentioned to take two cans of fuel – however it didn’t say the can size. So, left to interpretation people took from 20 to 40 liters extra per car. What was meant each car should take 2 x 20 = 40 liters as apparently a can is 20 liters – now we know. At the end, we were short on fuel and if not for the Indonesian team lending us some, we would probably had to leave one or two cars behind to get some extra fuel. Good that nobody worried about this at the beginning as we all were full of joy and excitement.
Each of us picked a different time of arrival to Al Kamil or the EWC starting point. With no hurry, we all arrived one minute to the hour and were all ready to go!
Air down to 10-12 psi, ORAC safety briefing and off we went!
Soon after was the first stuck…
We had two winches one in front and and one at the back just to minimize chance of both of them getting stuck at the same time.
The sand on the desert was changing from small piles covered in bushes to long and high dunes with all types of sand. This variety made it actually very interesting.
We all soon found out that the sand was different than what we used to, a bit like a fine sugar.
First rim loss on me. In total I had it three times over two days and always on the same tire.
Popping a tire is not a big problem, but it takes a lot of energy and time to get it back up delaying the whole team. Great experience once but three times was too much.
I learned tires pop when the seal around the rim is weak and a side force is applied to the tire. This happens when going down with turned wheels under low tire pressure – it is better to wait until the car hits the bottom and then turn instead of allowing the wheel to hit the ground side ways.
I think the reason I lost the the same tire two more times was because the seal was too weak after the first loss. When we put the tire on we only pumped it 12 psi or so to be ready for the sand. Instead, however, we should have pressurized it to 35 psi so that the seal sits properly and then deflate back to sand pressure. Additionally, cleaning the rim from the sand inside as thoroughly as possible probably would have also helped.
We used an air jack which proved very useful after many unsuccessful attempts to use hydraulic trolley jack that we could not stabilize on sand with the wooden support we had.
We kept moving with everyone occasionally getting stuck.
One little hesitation on the gas pedal and the car was going digging in the sand. After last year experience I was light footed and number of times I had to do repeated attempts even on smaller hills instead of just pressing the gas pedal a bit harder so the car doesn’t get stuck.
We did really well on the first day with a camping spot after IP7 – not too bad for a new team.
Evening time of useful stories and experiences sharing ranging from feeding children with Guinness to using satellites in warfare…
We supposed to be ready and depart by 7am the next day, but some of us had to catch up on some sleep due to late arrival the night before.
This gave us a chance to stop and wander around in the morning appreciating the beauty of the dessert.
Just past 8 o’clock we left and kept moving during what was going to be a long day.
After some 1-2 hours in the bushy section we entered higher dunes and reached this point. This turned out to be the hardest section during the entire trip.
What is in front of the X-Tera in the picture below, is an entry to a bowl (or a funnel some people call it). It took some swinging to enter it, but eventually we were all in. As it can be seen in the horizon the red Jeep was already out of the bowl on the other side.
Here we noticed first problems with white Rubicon which seemed to start loosing some power. It took a bit of an effort to climb this little hill which would have not been any problem at all earlier. After a few swings and flattening the entry point with the shovel, the Rubicon was also in the bowl.
After one or two attempts X-Terra climbed out of the bowl on the other side.
What can be seen in the clip below is that Rubicon lost its power and despite many attempts, changing drivers and car settings it could not climb that bowl up.
What a view… nothing in sight for miles and we are getting stuck.
We started the Rubicon recovery what proved really though due to long hill and not many options to anchor another car on top. We connected two lines together and after some repositioning of the red Jeep we used a double winch option. Since we only had 2 winches in the team – and one was in the bowl – we were really careful trying not to have the red Jeep to get stuck.
It was not an ideal situation as the line was cutting in the top of the dune, wasting the winch energy entering the sand rather than pulling the other car up the hill. We even put the shovel under the line on top of the hill to avoid its digging in, but unfortunately the shovel easily broke up.
I managed to enter the side of the bowl and decided to go through it while the Rubicon was being recovered.
The difficult part was to get enough momentum to climb it all the way up, with full power on without stopping.
The only way to swing the car was to reverse upward onto a 45 degree hill behind and then start the ascent all the way up. To climb that hill behind required getting enough momentum (and power) which could only be done if the car was higher up and a little away from the bottom of the bowl opposite of the 45 degree hill.
To get to that point required enough momentum from the point I was standing in the picture above…
Therefore, this bowl required a little planning ahead to avoid getting stuck at the bottom of the bowl from where the recovery would have been very difficult.
One rule on the desert – always stop where the gravity can help you move again.
After a few attempts to get enough momentum from the back hill, with full throttle on and 2nd gear in 4L the Jeep slowly but steadily climbed all the way up.
This was when I truly realized what these cars are capable of. Overall I lost some sensors but mechanically the car was intact after two days of really hard work. Later on we found out that Rubicon partially lost its clutch and the bearing in the transfer case, but even with that was able to continue until the end of Day 2.
After I was out we kept trying to pull the Rubicon out, but it wasn’t possible and red Jeep almost lost its winch – some smoke and smell of hydraulic oil came out of it (fortunately later on we found out it was still functioning and required only minor repair).
Despite many attempts we could not pull the Rubicon out. Then, out of the blue, an Indonesian team showed up and helped us out.
If not for them, we had one more option in mind which was to let the Rubicon cool off and try to swing it up from the bowl like the other cars hoping that its lost power would return. This would have probably not work now that we know the Rubicon almost lost its clutch.
Indonesians were really experienced and quickly positioned their cars higher up and using 3 winches we managed to pull the Rubicon out.
Kudos to the Indonesian team for stopping and helping us out – a true team spirit.
After that experience and loosing quite some time we decided to stick with the Indonesian team until the we exit the desert.
The rest was not without people getting stuck, but it was much faster recovery due to quick assistance from both teams.
On my 3rd rim loss we struggled quite some time to put it back on, but eventually it worked out.
After almost 70 km of driving we finally saw some buildings – what a comforting view it was.
After 2 days of adventure and riding 70km in hard offroad, we all came out of the desert safely and after 4 hours driving reached back to Muscat.
What an adventure!