A sneak peek of Mike’s Advanced Off-Road Adventure Routes: UAE & Oman Guidebook
With the exception of Route 13, all the routes in the guidebook have been driven by the author. Some were driven solo but the more remote and demanding routes were driven with a group. You will see that some of the routes are ‘crossings’. The routes do cross the named areas but they do not purport to be the definitive routes across them. There are a huge number of possible variations to the routes and you should not shy away from finding alternative ones of your own, if you wish.
The routes in the guidebook, however, can be described, in terms of driving technicality, as ‘reasonable’ routes through the areas rather than the most ‘demanding’ ones. The aim was to successfully complete the route and not to put vehicles or people under unnecessary stress or pressure.
Right of Way. One important caveat that must be stated here is that there is no right-of-way. Some of the routes in the guidebook run adjacent to international borders and through areas that may be government controlled or privately owned land. You have no right of access and you may be discouraged, or even prevented, from going there by government, security and official tourism agencies. If you choose to do any of the routes in the guidebook, you do so entirely at your own risk.
Route Difficulty/Grade Criteria. All the routes are graded, in order to give you a better understanding of the difficulty, remoteness and commitment required. Depending on your previous experience and confidence, it is hoped that you will see yourself in each of the Grade Criteria and therefore know which routes are within your capabilities. If a route doesn’t meet all the criteria for a particular grade, it will have been graded on the most demanding of the three criteria and an explanation is given in the route description as to why it has been graded thus.
Grade 1
Duration: Can be completed in 1 day.
Remoteness: Not remote, relatively close to large population centres and major roads.
Difficulty: Relatively simple dune and/or wadi/mountain driving.
Grade 2
Duration: Can be completed in 2 days.
Remoteness: Relatively remote, though within 40km of major escape routes.
Difficulty: Includes technical dune and/or wadi/mountain driving.
Grade 3
Duration: Requires more than 2 days.
Remoteness: At times exceedingly remote, over 6Okm to major escape routes.
Difficulty: Includes very technical dune and/or wadi/mountain driving.
Basis of Routes. The routes are shown on road mapping of various scales. The scale is displayed on each image together with the direction of True North. Larger scale maps are included, in order to give you a sense of where the routes are on a broader view. The maps are not intended to be used for navigation. For planning and navigating each route, see the Navigational Software CD paragraph below.
The distances and direction to and from the start and finish points for each route are based on users of the guidebook travelling to and from Dubai. This is not some from of perverse exclusion but merely to give users a handle on where the routes are. It’s a safe assumption that most users will be based in Dubai but that’s not meant to exclude, or make it more difficult for, users from anywhere else.
The distances quoted are the actual distances driven on tarmac roads but are the straight-line distances between waypoints for the off-road distances (that is, the distance between the start point and finish point via all the waypoints in the route descriptions).
Navigational Software CD. The guidebook comes with a navigational software CD containing all the routes as individual files with all the waypoints shown, as well as relevant fuel stations. The routes are saved in the .gpx file format. You will need appropriate software that can open .gpx files (such as Garmin’s Mapsource™) in order to be able to use the CD. All the waypoints listed in the route descriptions are loaded onto the CD. Each individual waypoint’s ‘comment’ box contains the same description as that in the waypoint lists in the route descriptions in this chapter. To create the described routes you will need to link up the waypoints in the correct order as per the route description. You will also be able to make up routes that cover smaller sections of some of the longer routes or just link up waypoints of your own with the ones in the guidebook’s routes.
Changes Over Time. As you will no doubt be aware, the amount of change, particularly in the UAE, can be intimidating as well as infuriating. Areas that were once ‘wilderness’ become construction sites, or farms or even nature reserves. It is highly likely that you will encounter something unexpected on a route that was not contained in the route descriptions in the guidebook. This may be the construction of an impenetrable fence, a new tarmac road, a new quarry or even a railway line. Natural causes can also dramatically alter a route. Dunes can drift over tracks and flooding in wadis can wash away tracks and block gorges. You will have to be prepared to encounter these changes and deal with them as you meet them. It is unlikely, except for the most extreme of changes, that you could not complete your trip by finding an alternative way round.
Waypoint Co-ordinates. All Waypoint co-ordinates are given using the WGS 84 datum using Latitude and Longitude in degrees and decimal minutes (e.g. N25 13.421 E55 21.573).
Landmarks and Sights En-Route. Rather than a bland A to B listing, the routes contain some of the sights that can be taken in en route as well a definite ground features (e.g. ‘fence corner’, ‘small plantation’, ‘track junction’) and they act as a form of re-assurance that you’re on the right track. However, a lot of the dune driving routes cannot be so descriptive. Many of the waypoints are on featureless dunes and are there to act as a general direction guide, rather than marking a definite ground feature.
Difficult Sections. Where the driving is technically difficult comment is made in the ‘Detailed Description’.
Escape Route Options. All the routes give escape route options. You may or may not chose to use them if you need a quick and/or safe way out in an emergency, or for any other reason that dictates that you need to cut the trip short. In your trip planning and preparation you may find there are better escape routes, which of course you should use. The point is that you need to have a ‘Plan B’ to get you and your group out of the area as easily as possible if the situation dictates. The escape routes that are given are in addition to the possibility of back-tracking to the start point or being near enough to the end to reach the finish point.
Fuel Options. Under each of the routes the location of the nearest petrol station to the start and finish is given and the approximate distances involved. For the longer routes you will need to divert to petrol stations en-route. The details of these diversions are also included in the route description where appropriate. The distances given between petrol stations will allow you to decide how much extra fuel to carry. For the shortest route you may, reasonably, decide to carry no extra fuel. For the two longest trips you may have to carry up to 100 litres of extra fuel, depending on the your vehicle’s range and its average off-road fuel consumption.
Accommodation Options. It is assumed that you have camped out in the desert and mountains before, and in all seasons. There is excellent guidance in some of the other regional guidebooks regarding camping equipment and practice if you are looking for more detail than is contained in this guidebook. What you will find under the route sections are locations of sites that have been used when undertaking the trips. There is also some guidance given to where to stay before and after the off-road element of the trip.
Photo Credits: Colin Campbell, Shaun Ellis, Albert Mahesh, Gordon Smith and the Author.
THE ROUTES
Southern UAE
Route 1 Al Maghrib Crossing, Grade 2
Route 2 Al Maghrib Exploration, Grade 2
Route 3 Liwa Crossing, Grade 2
Route 4 Al Humrah Crossing, Grade 2
Route 5 Tropic of Cancer, Grade 3
Route 6 Go West!, Grade 2
Northern UAE
Route 7 Dubai to Ras Al Khamia, Grade 1
Route 8 Masafi to East Coast, Grade 1
Route 9 Khatt Exploration, Grade 2
Route 10 Hot Rock, Grade 2
Route 11 Hatta to Masafi, Grade 2
Route 12 Seven Emirates Border to Border, Grade 3
Oman
Route 13 Starfish Dunes, Grade 2
Route 14 Wahiba Crossing, Grade 3
Route 15 Oman Empty Quarter, Grade 3
Route 16 Rock and Sand Tour, Grade 3
Route 17 Oman/Saudi/Yemen Confluence, Grade 3
