City man dies in motorcycle crash at Idaho sand dunes

By Al Beeber - Lethbridge Herald on May 22, 2024.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

A 36-year-old Lethbridge man died Sunday after a motorcycle crash at the St. Anthony Sand Dunes in Idaho.

The East Idaho News has reported that the man was riding a motorcycle and went off a sand dune about 50 feet in height and landed at the bottom on lava rocks.

Freemont County emergency personnel were dispatched about 11:15 a.m. Monday to the dunes with first responders arriving within minutes of the initial 911 call. They provided life-saving measures which were unsuccessful, the newspaper reported.

The dunes consist of more than 10,000 acres of quartz sand in Idaho’s Snake River Plain. They can range in height from 10 feet to 400 feet and are a popular destination for ATV enthusiasts.

The visitidaho.com website calls the site “the ultimate playground for off-road vehicle enthusiasts” and it’s also home to one of the largest herds of wintering elk in the U.S.

The dunes, The Herald was told Tuesday, are especially popular with students from BYU-Idaho at Rexburg which is nearby and one to two deaths happen at them every year.