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What are a redneck's last words? |
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Written by Alex Close/Tahoe World
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Monday, 04 September 2006 |
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 Q: What are a redneck’s last words?
A: Watch this y’all!
Listen up y’all, out in the middle of the Nevada desert, just inside insanity on America’s Loneliest Highway — that’s Nevada’s Highway 50 east of Fallon — is a huge mountain of sand.
Fittingly, it’s named Sand Mountain.
Run by the Bureau of Land Management, it’s a mecca for off-road enthusiasts.
On most days, or weeks, Sand Mountain is little more than a deposit of sand on the north east corner of a lakebed. Built up throughout the millenia, the desert floor left dry and blown into the valley corner by endless winds, it is a 600-foot tall OHV playground.
Most of the time this clean monster dune is desolate, alone in the vast sea of valleys that make up northeastern Nevada.
However, on Labor Day weekend, when all the hippies flock to the Black Rock desert to run naked and hallucinate on “The Playa” of Burning Man, Sand Mountain becomes home to another event. Maybe not quite as big, maybe not quite as obscure — but every bit as crazy.
 The flat beach that sits below Sand Mountain becomes a parking lot of $100,000 camper set ups, monster trucks and ATV trailers forming a city of circled encampments complete with fire pits, lawn furniture, satellite dishes and even swimming pools — that’s right, some of these crazy rednecks even tote thousands of gallons of water out into the desert to fill up a small swimming pool.
Temporary roads bisect the encampments. ATVs, motorcycles and dune buggies of all sorts race along the sandy roads to the mountain, where they jump ridges, climb walls and race up huge sand bowls to the top of the world.
As the sun goes down campfires ignite — usually instantly, aided by high octane gasoline. Music blares and the smell of barbecued red meat fills the air.
One might think a party would ensue (which it does) and the sound of two-stroke engines and big block buggies would give way to the peaceful calm of the desert night.
Yeah right.
 At no time during the night is the darkness void of a thundering engine. Aided by headlights, buggies and ATVs race throughout the darkness, screaming up the mountain and racing through the temporary village like insane nocturnal beasts.
Just as the morning sun begins to peak over the eastern mountains — at about 5:30 a.m. — the last engine ceases.
An hour later the sun is up, and the first of the early risers is on the steep sandy slopes again, ready to repeat the previous day’s high-speed, high-octane insanity.
Photos by Alex Close & Keith Sheffield/Tahoe World
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 05 September 2006 )
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