Skimboarding on Sand Dunes

In this article, we share our experience with skimboarding on sand dunes and answer some common questions about using a skimboard on sand hills. You will learn how skimboards compare to sandboards and how to successfully stay on your skimboard as you fly down sand dunes at the beach or in the desert. We also share our top 5 locations for giving it a try in the USA, so be sure to skim around for that.

Skimboarders will naturally try and use their boards whenever possible. So when they are not at the beach they will go flatlanding in the city, ride down grass hills, on snow, staircases, down sand dunes, and use it as a balance board, or even as a coffee table. Sand dunes are especially enticing to ride down as the landing is soft and you can get a fair bit of speed on the way down.

While you can certainly skimboard on sand dunes, doing so is more like a suboptimal way to sandboard. It works but you;l have to try pretty hard. Whereas an actual sandboard is designed to go faster and is easier to stay on without falling off. Let’s take a deeper look.

Do Skimboards Work On Sand Dunes?

Skimboards do work on sand dunes but it takes some skill and practice to stay on all the way down the sand dune. Due to their oval shape and distribution of surface area, skimboards will be much less efficient than purpose-built sandboards. This means slower and less controllable, but a lot of fun.

Real sandboards are shaped closer to snowboards than skimboards and have a different distribution of surface area (they are longer and narrower). Skimboards are much wider, so it’s much easier to dig a rail into the sand, which will stop the board completely, causing you to fall off.

Skimboards also have a shallower rocker than sandboards, so they are much worse at turning on the sand. Consequently, this means you will instinctively use more rail to turn the skimboard, which will in turn have a bigger chance of digging into the sand and throwing you off. So it’s not helping you.

Dedicated sand boarders say they try to keep the sandboard as flat as possible and only dig in their rail when they absolutely need to. They do this to go as fast as possible and minimize falling.

Can You Use a Skimboard As a Sandboard?

You can use your skimboard as a sandboard, however not as a serious sandboard, so just have fun with it as an alternative for when the waves are flat.

As mentioned above, they are designed differently. Just as a sandboard would be terrible in the ocean, a skimboard is not great on the sand. Of course, you can still use your skimboard on sand dunes. Check out our guide tips for skimboarding on sand dunes below.

Sand dunes at the beach are a critical part of the beach ecosystem so take care not to destroy the vegetation on the dunes.

How To Use a Skimboard On Sand Dunes

To master the art of skimboarding down sand dunes check out the video at the bottom of the page showing skimboard legend Austin Keen skimboarding on sand dunes, and analyze some of his techniques. If you just want a description of how to go down sand dunes on a skimboard then here is our guide:

Take a good run-up just as if you were skimming on water. Skimboards are slower on sand so the run-up gives you more speed and forward momentum.
Apply lots of back foot pressure. Doing this avoids nose-diving and falling forwards. Skimboards have much less concave so they are prone to nose dive if you don’t lean back. Back foot weighting counteracts this.
Get really low. Much lower than when ocean skimboarding or flatlanding. This is to give even more pressure to the back foot and help balance because rails don’t help skimboarding on sand dunes.
Drag your trailing hand in the sand to help your turn the skimboard and keep balance. He keeps the board flat to maximize speed and drags the rear hand, to help twist the body for steering, and as a balance aid for the extreme back foot weighting.
Go with the slope of the sand. Trying to fight against the route the sand dune takes you as you skim is a losing battle. Instead embrace the direction it takes you making only minor adjustments to direction instead of big corrections.
Keep your wax clean. If you have wax on your skimboard then the sand will inevitably get stuck to it if you are skimming down sand dunes. This heavily reduces the grip of your feet and will result in more falling off. Be aware that we need a lot of grip on dunes because of the increased friction of sand beneath your board. Wash off the sand if you can.

Additional Tips for Skimboarding Sand Dunes

Drop to your butt if you’re about to fall. The sand should be soft. Avoid falling forward, because that’s when injuries happen. The most common injury would be a rolled ankle and you don’t want that if you have to climb back up a dune!
Wear sunglasses. Sand in the eyes = bad.
Never attempt to grab rail when skimboarding on sand dunes. Why? You’ll squash your fingers. It’s not water. Grabbing a rail will also dig in the opposite rail, and help you to fall.
Find the biggest slope you’re comfortable with. Because skimboards are slower, skimboarding on sand dunes needs a bigger slope. The little slopes at the back of the beach normally won’t cut it.

Skimboarding On Sand At The Beach

At the water’s edge, you can skimboard on the sand at the beach. The wetter the sand the better.

There will be much more friction skimboarding on the sand than in the water, so be aware of this to prevent injury. Wet sand is a lot harder than soft sand dunes or water, so charge but be careful.

Just like skimboarding on sand dunes, you want to jump on the skimboard with more forward momentum than you would in the water, to overcome the increased friction.

If you slide down dunes at the back of the beach, be careful not to destroy the plant life.

5 Places You Can Try Skimboarding On Sand Dunes in the USA

Here are our 5 best places to skimboard on sand dunes in America:

Florence, Oregon

The Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area is home to the world’s first actual sandboarding park, the “Sand Master Park”. This purpose-built park has some of the best facilities for sand sliding in the US with dunes up to 150m tall.

California

The most spectacular dunes are the Mojave Desert and Death Valley National Park. These two locations (and others) have strict rules for where you can and cannot drive. They can also be disorientating so take proper preparations before you go there.

SoCal has several nice options including Pismo Beach (where we saw Austin in the above video).

California has too many options to list. So check out a few of these;

Monterey county
Oceano Dunes Recreation Area
Marina State Beach and Dunes Preserve
Sand City Beach, a huge place called “the Crater”

Texas

The Monahans Sandhills State Park has a recreation dune field for all kinds of “sand sliding” sports. These dunes are located on the eastern edge of the Chihuahuan Desert near the town of Monahans.

The Dunes are up to 70 feet high and they have facilities for food, drinks, and camping with water and electricity. Access to the park costs $4 per day.

North Carolina

Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head has the largest dunes on the east coast. Skimboarding on sand dunes here is great because the sand is notably soft. It’s close to towns Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head where you can hire equipment if you need it.

Shoes are a must here because the sand gets very hot.

Michigan

Michigan has 300,000 acres of sand dunes! Incredible. The best spots here are around the southwest of Lake Michigan, with Silver Lake and the Warren Dunes State Park offering amazing dunes. Silver Lake was nominated in the top 5 of the US sandboarding spots.

The Warren Dunes State Park has dunes up to 72m, the highest called “Tower Hill”. Both of these spots have rental shops nearby to hire boards and get food etc.