SANDTASTIC!

Dangle the opportunity to put the hammer down on more than a dozen square miles of the largest coastal dune complex in the world, add in partying with family and friends at sand camps, spice it up a bit with a variety of motorsport competition and nightly concerts, and it's easy to see why the five-day

- Bruce W. Smith

DuneFest has drawn thousands of avid sand lovers and their families every year for the past 20 years to this portion of Oregon's southern coast.

DuneFest, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2022, is a unique summer event held the first week of August in the tiny town of Winchester Bay that is the north entrance into the middle of the 40-mile-long Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area (ODNRA). Attendees tend to make reservations for one of a half-dozen designated sand camping areas along the edge of the Dunes or in one of many RV parks in the local area.

Jody Morrow, head of DuneFest and part of the Reedsport/ Winchester Bay Chamber of Commerce, said nearly 11,000 attendees found their way to the coast for the annual five-day event. "That number is down a little from previous years, but people are still a little tentative about getting their lives back to normal and travelling after the pandemic." What makes DuneFest such an attraction to so many sand lovers? Answer: Its location and activities. The organizers jampack the event with family activities, motorsports, and more than 60 vendors supplying everything from food and clothing and ATV gear to accessories and tuning and repairs. There's also a local vendor offering side-by-side rentals, which was popular with out-of-towners who had never been to the Oregon Dunes.

DuneFest's coastal location and festival-like ambiance attracts four-wheeler and ATV enthusiasts from nearly every U.S. state, Canada, and beyond. The attendees at the 2022 event were as varied as the vehicles they brought to the sand. Brandon Moore, coordinator of motorsport activities at DuneFest, says in years. past he's met well-known celebrities, and even royalty who flew in from as far away as Dubai, all attending DuneFest incognito with their families and friends.