Just before the winter got crappy here in Oregon my wifey and I drove over to Christmas Valley. If you've never been to Oregon, it does have diverse landscape from the Pacific Ocean to the west with miles and miles of Douglas Fir Forests and Central Oregon is high desert with Ponderosa Pine and Juniper Forests. Considerable volcanic activity happened here thousands of years ago creating 11,000 acres of "Dunes" near Central Oregon. http://www.duneguide.com/sand_dune_guid ... valley.htm
The "Sand" is not like beach sand, rather it is more like river silt or loam mixed with very fine volcanic ash. 4x4 is maniditory with really good tires. Not a lot to winch off from and hardly anyone around.
We got lucky and it rained in the desert creating significant mud holes everywhere. They didn't last long so we drove for almost 100 miles 
and smashed through as many as we could while we could all day long.
