Wahiba Sands / Ramlat Al Wahiba / Sharqiya Sands crossing north - south, Al Raka - coast / Qihayd / Ali Mosque Wahaibi

Wahiba Sands / Ramlat Al Wahiba / Sharqiya Sands crossing north-south from Al Raka to coast / to Qihayd / to Ali Mosque Wahaibi

This track is the one described in the Oman Off-Road book.

Suggestions:
- Take desert equipment with you: 2-4 sand boards, a (kinetic) rope, 1-2 shovels, compressor, tire pressure gauge.
- Deflate the pressure of all 4 tires down to around 20 PSI = 1.4 bar (in a difficult situation you can deflate temporarily also down to 15 PSI = 1.0 bar).
- Consider fuel consumption of ~ 30 L/100 km in the sand, so consider taking an additional fuel tank depending on the capacity of your car's tank.
- Provide a possibility to charge your smartphone (e.g. usb-port in your car or take a car usb-charger with you, each with sufficient amperage) since using your smartphone for navigation consumes a lot of energy.
- Take an additional device for navigation with you (e.g. second smartphone or even better a real GPS device) with this track on it.
- There is not always mobile phone net coverage. So it is helpful to go by two (or more) cars just in case of emergency.
If you go only in one car (what we did for one of our two crossings), it is advisable to take a satellite phone with you and to have experience in sand driving.

On its first ~ 35 km between its northern end / Al Raka to the 1000 nights tourist camp, the trail passes several other tourist camps. Frequent traffic, road visible and in rather good condition (picture 1).
When this track turns left for the 1000 nights camp and leaves the main valley, it climbs upwards. If this is too steep for your car, drive a little back and follow the signs indicating the 1000 nights camp. The signs will guide you a serpentine track upwards, which will hit this track shortly after you are at the top.
On the other ~ 115 km between 1000 nights tourist camp and the southern end, the track is sometimes not easily visible and splits up several times. So use this uploaded track in order not to get lost. Occasional traffic by other tourists and local Bedouins.
Once the wheel tracks divide into two tracks in form of a "Y" with a car tire in the center of the Y. You turn left before the car tyre as shown by this uploaded track.
The track directly climbs a dune and shortly after this, it climbs the soft side of a dune. If this is too difficult for your car, turn left in front of the dune, drive around 250 m in parallel to the dune, turn 180 degrees right where the dune ends and drive around 250 m back at the other side of the dune. By this, you do a U-drive around this dune and avoid climbing the soft side.
Later on, you will pass a mosque (with a pump-operated fountain nearby, picture 3), a kiosk / gasoline supply (during one of our two crossings, there was no one when we passed, picture 4) and a separate pump-operated fountain (picture 5). The pump-operated fountains belong to the Bedouins / are not public.

During ~ 90 kilometers from the north, the region is full of dunes (becoming lower towards the south), afterwards the region is rather flat (picture 6), again dunes for the last ~ 5 kilometers.

The track can be done in around 7 hours + time for stops.
We started the track at around noon and stayed along the track a while after having passed the 1000 nights camp. On the next day, we did the crossing and stayed at the ocean south of Qihayd. Alternatively, you can stay for a second night in the dunes during the last 4 km before Qihayd, in order to have another night in the dunes before leaving. So you have two nights in the dunes, where the times before sunset and after sunrise are the most beautiful ones.
We did the track mid of February 2020 and January 2022 (not yet too hot) and did not get stuck.

If you have suggestions / comments / questions, feel free to contact me.