Beverly Sand Dunes on the Columbia
— river sand the wind built into hills.
Not only on a wall.
“A field of sand dunes sits on the east bank of the Columbia River a few miles downstream of Vantage, where Crab Creek meets the river through a notch in the basalt. The sand is river sand, deposited by the Columbia and reworked across roughly eighteen hundred acres by the prevailing southwesterly wind. The Washington Department of Natural Resources keeps the area as an open recreation site, primarily for off-road vehicles, and on summer weekends the dunes are noisy. On a still spring morning before the riders arrive the wind ridges are sharp and clean, and the basalt cliffs across the river hold the early light.
Beverly Sand Dunes on the Columbia, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Beverly Dunes sit on the east bank of the Columbia River in Grant County, central Washington, roughly six miles south of the Interstate 90 crossing at Vantage and just north of where Crab Creek empties into the Columbia. The Washington Department of Natural Resources manages the site as an open off-road vehicle recreation area covering close to eighteen hundred acres, with primitive camping permitted along the access road. The Saddle Mountains rise to the south, the Wahatis Peak country to the east, and across the river the basalt ramparts of the Frenchman Coulee escarpment step up toward the central Washington plateau. The Hanford Reach of the Columbia, the last free-flowing stretch of the river above Bonneville Dam, begins downstream of the dunes.
The dunes are shaped by the prevailing southwesterly wind that funnels through the Columbia River canyon between the basalt walls of the Frenchman Coulee escarpment and the Saddle Mountains. The same wind makes the wider Columbia Gorge a long-standing draw for sailboarders and kiteboarders downstream, and in this notch it carries fine Columbia River sand up out of the floodplain and stacks it against the rising ground. The result is a working dune field, still being remade. In summer the wind drops at first light and again at dusk, and those are the hours that hold the sharp wind ridges before the next gust or the next rider reshapes them.
The area is open through the year, free to enter, and managed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources as an off-road vehicle recreation site. Washington off-road vehicle registration or a non-resident permit is required for any motorised use, and the surrounding land outside the recreation boundary is closed to vehicles. Primitive camping is permitted at the dunes; there are no developed sites, no potable water, and no fee, with a fourteen-day stay limit on DNR-managed land. Summer weekends and three-day holidays draw heavy ATV and dune-buggy use and can be crowded and loud; weekdays and the shoulder season are quieter. The closest fuel, water, and groceries are at Vantage on Interstate 90, about ten miles north.