Padre Island

Went on Padre Island ( South Texas) on the 4th of July. Sand was moist and packed for about 15 miles, at 4 wheel drive sign, then it got loser after that but still good. I only went down about 20 miles. Camped over night. Padre Island is a nice national park. Watched rangers release 143 baby sea turtles in the morning.

I expected the sand to be powder and deep but for 20 miles it was relatively hard. They have you driving up near the dunes and dont want you near the water which makes the sand dryer. Sea weed, No lack of sea weed.

End of Padre report

 

Sounds like you made out better than we did last weekend. This is what it looked like for the first 15miles.

 

We usually spend some of Iowa's winter in the corpus area and I have had bluTaco (07 Prerunner) on the beach several times with out problems by reading the sand conditions. I saw a big Ram 4X4 lifted and big tires buried by someone who thought it was invincible. I have also put a lot of miles on my WR250R on the beach. Fun, fun, fun plowing through the grader wind rows in the areas that are maintain for us touristy types. Rode by V-Strom down the beach also, but not much fun having to pay a lot more attention and carry more speed to keep the DL1000 stable and not plowing when in the looser stuff.

 

Took my truck down to galveston beach last week and it was fun driving in the sand. Most of the sand was hard packed but some of the fluffy stuff was fun to drive through. We were there for 4 days and I left the sea salt and sand on my truck for a couple days after and I can't believe how the rust starts right away. I suggest washing it immediately after to keep the rust starting.

 

SMKYTXN
Wow the water was lower, way lower at the 15 mi marker this weekend. I havent seen the water up that high. Did you have to cross any shallow channels past the 15 marker

 

Yeah, that was the first time I've seen it that high. We were forced to drive in the water through several sections although we didn't come across any channels. Past 15 it opened up to fluffy sand and was much more enjoyable.

We had intentions of running to the cut but burnt too much fuel getting to mile 30 due to the rough conditions.