The Dune du Pilat is located on the Atlantic coast near Arcachon in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France across from Cap Ferret. It is more than 100 meters high and is therefore the highest shifting dune in Europe with a width of 500 meters and a length of 2,700 meters.
It is a popular tourist destination and a long stairway makes it easy to get up and down from the high elevations of the dune. In the spring of this year, many forest fires destroyed large areas of forest right up to the dunes. From above you can see the destroyed campsites and we were lucky that we were already allowed to climb the dunes again.
A strong wind blows over the dune (video see below), which also likes to use the fine grains of sand to sandblast cameras. Protecting the delicate objective lenses and camera makes sense and you might not want to try shooting straight downwind.
