DUNE GUIDEUSA
Atlas standing on a dune ridge at sunset, one arm out presenting the sand behind him

MEET THE MASCOT

Meet Atlas.
America rides here.

Every guide in this network has a local face. Atlas does not belong to any one of them. He stands for the whole thing: nine locations in eight states, and the sand still being added.

WHY AN EAGLE

The other mascots got a home.
Atlas got the map.

The destination mascots are all locals. Fringe belongs to Glamis. Sable is a red fox because red fox actually live along the dune edge at Silver Lake. Each one is an animal you could plausibly meet at the place it represents.

The hub had a different problem. It does not represent a place. It represents the connection between places that are a continent apart, from a Pacific beach to an old lake bed in Utah to flood sediment in the Columbia Basin. No local animal covers that.

So the hub took the one that means the whole country. And it turns out almost nobody draws that bird in a helmet.

THE KIT

Dressed like somebody
who actually rides.

Atlas, the helmeted bald eagle mascot of Dune Guide USA, standing with his arms crossed in a navy riding suit

Navy riding suit with orange piping, cream panels across the chest and shoulder. Gloves. A belt. Armour over the knees. Cream boots with buckle straps, the kind that get scuffed.

The flag rides on his left shoulder, where a patch actually goes.

Goggles across the eyes, not pushed up for the photograph. Tail feathers out the back of the suit, because a bald eagle has a tail and pretending otherwise would look worse.

Arms crossed. He is not selling you anything.

THE RULE

The helmet is not
a costume.

Every mascot in this network wears a helmet, and every helmet is cut to fit the animal wearing it. A fox needs room for ears. An eagle needs room for a beak and a brow. Nobody gets a generic lid dropped on their head, and nobody gets to skip it because the drawing looks better without one.

That is a small thing to be strict about. It is also the whole point. These guides spend a lot of words asking people to ride like they want the place to stay open. A mascot who rides bareheaded on the homepage undoes that quietly, and children look at the pictures.

So Atlas wears a helmet in every drawing he appears in. There is no exception coming.

WHERE HE SHOWS UP

Standing next to
the map.

You will find him on the home page beside the network map, next to the nine destinations he stands for. He is not a guide, he does not give directions, and he will never appear in Camp Compass, which is a navigation tool and has no business carrying a cartoon.

If you want the local faces instead, they live on their own guides. Pick a destination and you will meet whoever belongs there.

RIDER INPUT

Something here
look wrong?

If a detail of the kit is off, or a piece of gear is drawn in a way no rider would actually wear it, say so. Email michael@duneguideusa.com. Getting corrected by riders is how the rest of this network gets built, and the mascot does not get an exemption.