From the top of a twenty story sand dune as the first trickles of sunlight crest the horizon I can feel the full vastness of the world. An incredible natural display shaped over thousands of years, the Imperial Sand Dunes, lays out for miles in all directions. Aside from my travelling companions, the only evidence of human existence within my ken are the tire tracks of their full send escapades. I’ve never felt the full depths of alone anywhere more than here, right now.
Thank goodness I’ve got a 225-horsepower dose of paddle tires and full send right here beside me.
Full disclosure: Polaris flew me to San Diego and transported me two and a half hours to the Glamis dunes for a couple of days ripping in a 2025 RZR Pro R. They supplied me with a nice RV to sleep in and a handful of nice meals. I got really sick and slept a lot, but that wasn’t their fault.
Camp RZR is an annual event hosted by Polaris for side-by-side enthusiasts out in the deepest depths of the Algodones Dunes in Southern California just miles from borders with Mexico and Arizona, colloquially known as Glamis. Around Halloween every year Camp RZR brings the party to the dunes for the unofficial “opening weekend” of the dune riding season. It’s way too damn hot in the summer to hang out around here, so most of the weekend warriors don’t show up until the temperatures drop below 95 degrees. And boy do they show up. Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest time of the year in Glamis with an estimated 150,000 people showing up. This opening weekend is just behind that with around 100,000 attendees.
Prior to my trip out into the dunes I had zero perspective on how large the side by side community could be. Tens of thousands of these mega-dollar toys are out here ripping around and hot dogging, it doesn’t seem like anyone is holding anything back. It’s full send mode at all times, from sun up to well after midnight every day. The night runs at some of the more popular hills are maybe the sketchiest thing I’ve ever borne witness to, watching drunk-as-skunks yahoos in hopped up jalopies rip up hills at speed, then turn around and rip back down.
These sand hills are older than modern society and claim to be the birthplace of the original dune buggy. In the pre-Meyers Manx days of dune riding So Cal hot-rodders stripped down old Ford Model T frames and outfitted them with balloon tires. The hill shown above is known as Oldsmobile Hill because it was viewed as impossible to climb by those early dune junkies, until someone shoved an Oldsmobile Rocket V8 in their jalopy and made fresh tracks up the face of the hill. That 303 cubic inch V8 made an incredible 135 horsepower in 1949.
In a brand new Polaris RZR Pro R climbing Oldsmobile is as easy as pointing the nose uphill and pressing the throttle. These tiny Minnesota mech suits are truly easy mode for just about any obstacle. I couldn’t climb this hill under my own power, but give me a 2-liter four-cylinder, a CVT, a set of paddle tires, and 29 inches of suspension travel and I’ll rip my way right up a wall of sand.
It’s easy to see why people gravitate toward these wild off-road machines, because they can absolutely make any normal human a dune riding superstar. I’m probably not going out and winning Dakar any time soon, but going from near-zero dune experience to drifting the side of a 100-foot dune in a single day feels pretty damn cool. Stepping into an RZR Pro R is like putting on Superman’s cape. I am suddenly capable of more, faster, better, farther.
So what is Camp RZR? After completing a day of dune riding, we headed back to camp to check out the absurd spectacle of it all. While ostensibly a marketing exercise for Polaris, this is a total carnival atmosphere for everyone. They hauled a ferris wheel, fireworks, live music, a laser light show, a lighted drone display, and a huge freestyle motocross setup out into the middle of nowhere to give people something to do in between their dune rips.
My personal favorite part of Camp RZR, however, had to be the Polaris fix it crew garages. With a few dozen mechanics working tirelessly, Polaris will accept any of their vehicles in for free repairs to your desert fuckups. Of one RZR missing its front left corner a mechanic said “This guy ran out of talent and luck at the same time, but if we have the parts and the time, we’ll get him back out there.” Whether its broken suspension, a ripped CVT belt, or an exploded axle, Polaris is happy to stand behind their products and get people out riding again.
This hospitality extends beyond the confines of Polaris’ makeshift garages, too. While we were out riding more than once we stopped to help someone dig out of deep sand or replace a smoked drive belt. That’s what events like this are all about, the collective helping the individual and having a shit ton of fun in the process. We’re all out here to enjoy the white of our knuckles, and we take the joy with the pain. Isn’t that what life boils down to?
I spent a weekend on the surface of a foreign planet driving a four-wheeled mech suit capable of traversing even the most absurd geography imaginable. I get it now. I understand the side-by-side craze better after having immersed myself in it for a few days. These machines give humanity access to entirely new worlds. There isn’t a road-legal machine in the world capable of the kind of desert ripping that one of these can manage. At $34,999 a Polaris RZR Pro R is a really expensive toy, but it’s really inexpensive for a spaceship.
