On the white sand dunes of Lake Michigan’s spectacular shoreline, Bobby Mars flipped our rental buggy and nearly killed us.
Silver Lake State Park is a dune field. Quartz sand (sometimes called sugar sand) gives that tan-white color. Because there isn’t much quartz underground in the bedrock of Michigan, it’s understood that ice-age glaciers moved massive rocks containing quartz from elsewhere. Then, once the glaciers melted, becoming what are now the Great Lakes, the water eroded the big rocks into sand. The quartz was deposited on Michigan’s shoreline by the pounding surf, and the wind blew the sand into layers, which built up higher and higher, becoming dunes. It supposedly took a couple million years.
The Silver Lake State Park is also known for attracting people who collect fulgurites or “petrified lightning,” formed when lightning hits the dunes. Grains of sand melt and weld to each other in the shape of something like a miniature thunderbolt. Fulgurites are rare, and people come to look for them here. They’re turned into trinkets, such as earrings, to be sold online.
But the ORV Area attracts a rural sensibility, which was obvious from the parking lots, where off-road trucks had towed off-road toys for a weekend of fuel-injected fun. Rural men love American trucks but lust after Japanese playthings.
Bobby and I visited a rental store. The town was almost vacant, like a seaside surf resort in the offseason. The guys inside were what you’d expect: farmer big, unkempt beards, neon clothing, and Pit Vipers.
It was all numbers inside: for $250 we acquired a 999cc off-road 4×4 that allowed us one hour of fun on 500 acres of massive dunes. We signed waivers without reading them and watched a two-minute safety video. Our guide even discouraged us from listening to a segment of the recording, in which the vehicle’s driver enters a deep donut pit—a depression made by the spinning and drifting wheels of buggies going in circles—because others have become trapped inside and then require a costly tow truck. Bobby paid for the rental along with the $500 damage deposit. We weren’t given helmets. Head protection isn’t required in the state of Michigan for side-by-sides. “You have sunglasses, so you don’t need goggles,” our guide told us.
The vehicle was easy to operate with a steering wheel, a gas and brake pedal, and simple gears (park, reverse, and high). “You notice the ‘L’ gear has been removed” our guide pointed out, “because ‘Low’ is for losers.”
This dune buggy is technically called a side-by-side because a passenger can sit next to the driver. This version was a 2019 Honda Talon 1000R. Top speed 75 miles per hour. Roll cage made from carbon and alloy tubing. Inside are two sports seats with race-car seat belts, securing the chest, pelvis, and shoulders. It’s like putting on a backpack but with two extra horizontal straps. Ours were broken, but we were told it’s fine. The passenger has a T-bar to hold onto anyway. The tire pressure was lower than usual so that the weight of the machine could be better distributed on the sand, in the same way snowshoes suspend feet on freshly fallen snow.
I turned the key. Ignition. Shifted the gears. High. Pressed the gas and brake pedals like a car. Simple.
Bashing dunes is like sailing giant ocean waves if the sea was struck still and turned yellow. Only five or six vehicles were out there. I am told in the summer, these dunes can host over 50,000 people. But today, it was the first month of the season, a weekday, and cold. Each ORV has a long flag sticking out of it, so that you can see danger over the dunes. My sunglasses could barely prevent sand from entering my eyes, so I couldn’t see anyway.
Some of these magnificent dunes were over 150 feet high, and we climbed their summits without effort or strain.
There is a cost, however.
You miss nature’s details going full speed. Dune bashing leaves you feeling as though you haven’t earned the world. You cross large sections of staggering beauty with the ease and convenience of another man’s engineering. It doesn’t give the satisfaction of imposing one’s own will against resistance. And because you’re driving so fast, you also have no time to appreciate your surroundings. All that’s required is the tap of a credit card, and the approval from the payment terminal, and voilà.
Of course, it’s so fun to blast octane in an expansive desert that these spiritual concerns disappear in the breeze. I wanted a challenge and drove aggressively.
Bobby had been talking throughout our car ride about being an academic. He even described his perspective as “mediated through a prism of abstraction,” which meant that he had been deprived of a real education: of being shoved into a locker for speaking that way.
So, when it was Bobby’s turn, and he entered the driver’s seat, I was surprised to see that something had changed in him. He depressed the gas pedal into the floor and, in seconds, was being limited by the engine’s governor. He began to overtake one towering dune after the next towering dune with childish enthusiasm. A combination of fearlessness and naïveté, which is a far more dangerous admixture than plain recklessness.
Indeed, there’s always a big risk when a boy discovers his balls; uninitiated, he takes one sip of adrenal juice and immediately proceeds to chug. And Bobby chugged. He aimed the buggy at the largest and steepest dunes.
Now, the dunes here are inconsistent and not only in size. The wind blows from the shore to reshape these giant hills, which can drastically change every hour. Some dunes have a steady and long incline because the wind has gradually blown the sand into mounds. This shallow angle is called the stoss slope. But on the other side of the dune, the sand can collapse under gravity like an avalanche and create a steep slope. This is called the slip face.
We climbed up the stoss slope and raced down the slip face. Bobby used the momentum of the previous hill as we passed through the slacks between dunes. But what happens when there is no stoss slope and only two slip faces?
We were going full throttle when we gained flight, hovering above the monotonous landscape, an angelic moment, suspended in the breeze, without earth’s resistance and the tires’ rolling friction.
Grace that couldn’t last.
@michiganenjoyer They almost died when their dune buggy crashed.
Despite the slight weight bias in the rear of these machines, the entire vehicle nose-dived into the descending slip face of the dune. At over 45 miles per hour, we introduced our windshield to the sand. Then a second time as the vehicle flipped again. It happened very fast and yet, like most accidents, the crash felt like it was occuring in slow-motion. Upon each encounter with the dune, Bobby and I both got a nose-full of sugar sand.
As we spun, we must have traveled a good distance because we were over 100 feet from the top of the dune. When we finally landed, luckily, on four wheels, we looked at each other in disbelief then laughed hysterically. Bobby asked me if I was alright (I was) and if we had flipped (yes Bobby, we had, twice actually). He searched for his sunglasses, which, during the vehicle’s double somersault, had flown off his face.
The dune gods spared our lives, but they needed some sacrifice to propitiate their appetite. Bobby was still a little upset that his shades were claimed. He lamented: “I had them for over 15 years.” It’s amazing how quickly our priority can shift from existential concern to personal inventory.
What else is there to do when one’s body is unscathed? Check the equipment for damage: the roof plastic popped out from the impact; several bolts had ripped out from the roll bar; the windshield was blown out; the rear light was damaged; and the fairing had snapped loose from the frame. Dune bashing? How about buggy bashing?
We returned to the rental shop. Bobby had come to terms with losing his $500 deposit. What he wasn’t ready for was the $2,023.64 repair cost. The mechanic had surveyed the machine. The front cage and back cage would need replacing. So would the roof. There would be labor costs too. “The problem you guys made,” the mechanic said, “was that you hit the brakes coming down the hill.” Condescension. In his eyes, we were inexperienced wusses. I didn’t think we would have benefited from correcting his professional conclusion, “No, we actually flipped it going far too fast over the steepest crest of the biggest dune.” In reality, we were inexperienced maniacs.
Caught off guard by the bill, and not having read the rental agreement, I asked to see it. “Renter is responsible for damages regardless of fault or negligence of the renter or any person, regardless if the damages are an act of God.” Hard to argue with. Still, we wanted to get another opinion, just in case these guys were inflating the cost of the repair. Because I once worked for a similar rental company, for jet skis on Lake Huron, I knew all about overcharging customers for damages. The staff fell into a fit of fury. They called a Silver Lake State Park ranger to draft a damage report.
The park ranger arrived. Now it was four rental staff and this ranger trying to bully us into paying immediately. The ranger took our licenses and made a damage report. After all the paperwork was done, I spoke with him casually, and eventually he loosened up. I asked him how often such accidents happened. He told me, “Since I started in 2002, I have witnessed eight fatalities and 75 evacuations to Grand Rapids by air ambulance.” When was the last one? “First day of the season a couple weeks ago. He got pinned between two machines.” Was he alright? “Still in intensive care, but he’s doing great!”
Then the shop owner arrived. As far as he was concerned, our questions were unwarranted, and his claim was non-negotiable. He put his cards on the table: “There is no chance you are stepping off the property until the bill is paid in full or else I am calling the police.” Okay. Fine. But we had our own secret weapon: an Ashkenazi litigator.
Just as everyone’s an atheist until the plane is crashing, anyone can be an anti-Semite until you need a lawyer. We put him on the phone from Los Angeles with the rental owner. For over 30 minutes they talked. At first, the owner spoke confidently and paced leisurely through his store. Then he started to yell at the lawyer. Finally, and completely resigned, the owner returned the phone. He refused to make eye contact. He said that he wouldn’t be calling the police. And to leave.
The lawyer got us off!
Or so we thought for about 30 minutes until Bobby’s credit card was charged anyway. Maybe it was worth the price.
Back in our Honda Civic, we drove to Grand Rapids for a dinner appointment. We were late. Bobby was less neurotic in the car than usual. Calm, even. He couldn’t believe he had submitted himself to the ecstasy of danger over the paralysis of caution.
Of course Bobby was grateful to have survived, but he was not stuck contemplating self-preservation. Vitalism is an instinct which conflicts with the petty desire for mere existence.
And this matters to civilization. Safetyism is one of the greatest threats to human achievement. It’s also bipartisan. See the YouTube comments below videos in which someone risks and fails. “F*** around and find out” or “Darwin Awards” or “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.” Yet humans never flourish when confined to comfort and caution.
The instinct that sends boys to the emergency room out of reckless fun is the same instinct that sends men to the moon. Flipping the dune buggy, Bobby received a belated initiation. He turned to me and confessed a revelation: “Sometimes you find something out about yourself.”
Mitch Miller is an adventure writer and conflict journalist. He’s more than happy to join in on any extreme activity, and can be reached at mitchenjoyer@gmail.com. Follow him on X at @funtimemitch.
