White Sands Campground — Hotel in Nephi

White sands is the closest campground from the entrance of little sahara recreation area, and also closest to the dunes, putting you right amongst them in some cases. Compared to Sand Mountain area though, the dunes around White Sands are much smaller, sharper(abrupt crests) and difficult to navigate at high speeds. Except for a few trails around the edges, you won't be able to drive near as fast in most cases, always being forced to slow down over the crest of the dune ahead.

You never want to charge over the top of a dune that you don't know the other side of. Most accidents come from accidental jumps, blind turns, blind cresting or rollovers from turning too sharp or getting too sideways on a steep slope with insufficient speed. However, all the above makes white sands perfect for smaller, less powerful, or non-turbo utvs, atvs and motorcycle. There are few to no dunes in this area that most machines can't navigate with enough speed or even without paddles.

To climb a dune, accelerate just before the bottom of smooth transition slopes, or right at the bottom after abrupt transitions (sharper, abrupt curve leading into the slope). You don't want to slam into abrupt transitions going up or down dunes as they can be dangerous, collapsing your arms into the handle bars at best, or throwing you over the handle bars straight into the hill or ground at worst. Even in a utv these abrupt transitions/curve can cause neck injury or suspension damage.

If you aren't running paddles, most machines or even 4x4 vehicles can navigate these dunes by airing down tires to ~10 psi on ohvs, or 15-20 on 4x4 street vehicles. Don't forget to air up for the drive home, making an 12v air compressor a necessary tool if you intend to use your 4x4 etc.

With all the above in mind, these dunes have been a staple adventure for my family since my early childhood riding in my dad's jeep. Avoid mid summer if you don't like the heat. White sands is more protected from wind offers some shade from native cedar trees throughout. Most vault toilets also have water spigots to refill drinking water containers etc. Stay...

This was an amazing place to camp, the dunes are fun, the facilities are nice, one HUGE complaint though is that quiet time at the campground supposedly started at 10 pm when about an hour after it got dark. But the group nearby us rode their atvs and motorbikes on the dunes next to our site until literally 4am making time of noise and keeping us all awake. There was no enforcement of the rules and those people were complete inconsiderate jerks. The management should atleast try and enforce that. Another group drove in at 5am and immediately started playing on their machines and making noise. It would have been perfect if people had been respectful of the 10pm to 6am quiet...

Spent a week down there over the forth of July. Only thing weird was there was no one there maybe 2 campers besides us. Ranger station was closed the whole week that I know of. Went to pay for annual and get ice. I thought for sure there would have need someone...we did talk to one guy that work their but could not really help....NP I went delta should have went to nephi the motorcycle shop burnt down some time ago...had a great time other than the giant wasps and this hornet for...