25Years
No. 24 · 25 Adventures
The White Wave
A wave the desert kept to itself.
The first time I drove out to the White Wave I was white-knuckling it.
If Will James hadn't been in the passenger seat, showing me where to go and how to do it, I probably wouldn't have gone all the way.
It's deep sand and no signs, and it goes on long enough that — if you haven't been before — it's easy to start doubting yourself. But then the road tips over a rise and there's a whole hill of white rock folded up like batter, and (usually…) nobody around.
Pick a weekday. Our guides know how to do the driving better than I do!
Same sandstone as the red canyons next door. The red is iron; here it washed out, so the rock came up white instead. Look close and you can still make out the old dune lines.
People have known this desert for thousands of years. The reason it's on a Dreamland tour at all is Will James, who ran the company before us and learned these back roads surveying them for the BLM. He's how we came to bring folks out here.
25Most outfits only send ATVs up this road; the sand gets that deep. We take full-size Suburbans, and some days you'll catch our guides out there with a shovel. Hard way in, so it stays quiet.
The famous Wave has a lottery you enter months out and mostly lose. Here there's no permit and no lottery. Come on a weekday and it's usually just you.
It's a whole hill of white rock you can walk across, not one overlook. Bigger than the photos make it look.
25We pair it with Peekaboo, a red slot canyon a short drive off. It's an easy walk with a little sand. Look up for the Moqui steps cut into the rock and the flood logs jammed overhead.