Big Dune, Nevada. Five square miles of sand that sings.

The Bureau of Land Management calls Big Dune a well-kept secret, used mostly by locals, with plenty of off-roaders on weekends. The dunes cover about five square miles and rise to about 500 feet. Big Dune is also home to sensitive plants and animals.

Nevada Trail Finder lists it as the Amargosa Big Dune: Nye County, sand, rated difficult, no fees, pets allowed. It is about the size of Sand Mountain near Fallon and sees fewer visitors. It is a year-round OHV area.

Big Dune Recreation Area

Travel Nevada calls it the Amargosa Big Dune Recreation Area, or Amargosa Dunes. It is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it is free. BLM manages the dunes as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

Big Dune is an off-highway vehicle area. BLM lists OHV riding as its activity, and it calls the dunes ideal for ATVs.

Big Dune buggy rules

Nevada law counts a dune buggy as an off-highway vehicle, along with ATVs, all-terrain motorcycles and any motor vehicle used on public land for recreation. That means a Nevada OHV decal, $20 a year, unless the machine is exempt: registered in another state and in Nevada 15 days or less, plated for the street, 70 cc or smaller, or built before 1976.

All year on BLM land in the Southern Nevada District, every engine needs a working spark arrester, and fireworks and exploding targets are banned.

The road in

Travel Nevada says the road gets sandier as it nears the dunes, that you want four-wheel drive, and that four-wheel-drive vehicles still get stuck around the dune.

On the north side of Big Dune, BLM has fenced off the densest population of Giuliani’s dune scarab, a beetle that lives at Big Dune and Lava Dune in the Amargosa Valley and nowhere else in the world. Do not ride OHVs inside the fence.

BLM announced the buck-and-rail and plastic tri-corner fencing on January 10, 2023, with the work due to finish by February 2023. More than 95 percent of the dune stays open, including the main dune system. The fence steers riders off the small dunes where the beetle larvae live until they come out to breed in spring.

Dispersed camping is allowed. There are no toilets and no water, so bring what you need and pack it all out. Travel Nevada says to camp on the outskirts of the dunes, away from the OHV traffic.

• Stay limit: 14 days, per BLM. Nevada BLM’s rule is 14 days in any 28-day period. After that, move at least 25 miles away, or off BLM land, for 14 days.
• Campfires: Stage 1 fire restrictions in the Southern Nevada District ended October 1, 2026. The year-round rules still apply.
• Trash: dumping household or commercial waste on public land is against the law.

More campsites, and the full BLM rules, are on our camping near Pahrump page.

BLM’s directions: from Las Vegas, take US 95 north about 95 miles. Turn left on Valley View Road and go about 2.2 miles. Turn left on a dirt road and follow it to the dune. The coordinates are 36.647378, -116.584977.

• From Pahrump: about 53 miles to the Valley View Road turn, north on Highway 160 and then US 95, about an hour.
• From the Las Vegas Strip: about 100 miles to the turn, a little under two hours.
• From Beatty: Travel Nevada puts the dunes about 29 miles south on US 95.

Drive times are from a routing service, rounded.

Big Dune, Nevada, map

BLM’s fencing maps show the dune field and the closed habitat on the north side. Nevada Trail Finder has map files to download.

Long-term averages from the Amargosa Farms weather station in the Amargosa Valley:

• January: highs around 61°F, lows around 32°F.
• July: highs around 104°F, lows around 69°F.
• All year: about 4.5 inches of rain.

Trail Finder says summer can run well above 110°F. Travel Nevada says the best riding is early mornings in early spring and late fall.

Big Dune is one of three singing sand dune areas in Nevada. Under the right conditions the dunes make a roaring or booming sound. Travel Nevada says there are only about 30 singing dunes on Earth. Singing sand needs a very particular grain size and very dry air, and each dune has its own pitch.

The minerals

A U.S. Geological Survey dataset maps Big Dune as a dune field in the Amargosa River valley, ringed by alluvial fan sediment. It models the sand as a mix of quartz, two kinds of feldspar and calcite.

Amargosa Valley sand dunes

That is Big Dune. Travel Nevada calls it Amargosa Dunes. The rest of the state’s riding sand:

• Sand Mountain, near Fallon: a 4,795-acre OHV fee site. The dunes run about 3 miles by 1 mile, and the main dune, about 600 feet, is the largest in Nevada. Dispersed camping.
• Crescent Dunes, north of Tonopah: steep, tall, singing dunes. Paddle tires recommended for motorcycles. Staging and dispersed camping, no services. More on our Tonopah page.
• Clayton Valley Sand Dunes: a BLM special recreation management area. Riding on unvegetated sand only, and no competitive events.
• Nellis Dunes, north of Las Vegas: 10,035 acres, no camping. See Las Vegas dirt bike trails, which also covers Dumont Dunes on the California side.

Closer to home, the Pahrump OHV network maps about 1,000 miles of dirt; see Pahrump off road trails. Beatty has its own; see dirt riding around Beatty.