A Visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park

September 30, 2018

I was excited to see that Great Sand Dunes National Park  is only about an hour away from Monte Vista National Wildlife Area. I remembered going there with some friends who had moved from Louisiana to Colorado when my children were small.  At that time,  we camped in old beat up  pop up trailer with holy canvas, as well as in the back of a covered pickup and rode in the back of that covered pickup looking like migrants as we toured several places in Colorado.  This was one of them. 

I don’t think we climbed the dues as our children were probably between two and eight years old. I decided to rectify that this trip.  I started early and got almost to the Park by the time the sun rose. You don’t see the dunes on the way in, until you are almost there, but you are driving towards the the Sangre de Cristo Mountains which overlook the dunes. Just before you  get to them, you take a left turn to reach the accessible area of the park.  

It was too early for the Visitor Center to be open, so I parked in the parking lot for hikes into the dunes, and prepared to hike.  It was barely warm enough that I thought I could get along without my jacket, but I had worn a long sleeved shirt. The dunes were beautiful in the early light and had long shadows helping to better define them.  

There is a big field of sand between the parking lot and the dunes. It was a hard slog just to get  to the base of the dunes.  I hoped to climb to the highest dune.  I ended up picking the wrong path and, when I got to the top, I saw I would have to climb down a long ways before I could climb up again.  It had taken to crawling to beat the steep slope because my legs were sinking almost the length of my stride and I couldn’t move fast enough to make much progress walking. AND I was already exhausted. By this time the sun was too high for pictures anyway, so I sort of skied back down part of the way and walked the rest. 

Sunrise coloring a cloud over the Sangre de Christo Mountains

Sun lighting up the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Before the sun hit the sand dunes

Dunes in sunlight and shadow

Hikers on dunes

Wind carved dunes 

My shadow

A field of little pitted dunes

Ripples

A closer up look of my shadow and the textures on the dunes. Several have gone before me.

A bigt of dune grass

A closeup of the sand.  I was surprised at the colors and roundness.

As I climbed higher, I could get more of this field

Footprints mostly don't have definition

Textures

Shadowed sculptures

Shadows are getting harsher

Another, higher view - and the right path to the highest dune

Dune landscape

Still heading up

Another landscape

Sand sculptures on a very large scale

I was amazed at the knife edge some of the dunes had - and the two very different sides

Huge sculpture

Textures

These are my footprints along the edge of a dune

This is a footprint from the ridged side of the dune just above- the sand flows out of the footprint and
 forms fingers in the ridges

A very peaceful place

These willows were glowing in the sun which backlit them

The last mullein bloom

A distant view of a pronghorn buck who was guarding his harem - in the hollow behind him

I spent a little time in the very lovely and informative visitor center and listened to a talk by a ranger about how the sand dunes formed. Most of the sand comes from the San Juan Mountains.  Wind patterns and water keep it locked against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  The dunes are super stable and look almost identical to pictures taken over one hundred years ago.  Most of the park is Wilderness and can only be accessed by horse or four wheel drive, so I don’t know how much of it I’ll get to see. But I’m sure I’ll go visit it again next spring as this is where I’ll be living and working mid April to mid October. 

I will be traveling to Texas when this blog comes out.  I finish working at Monte Vista/Alamosa, Friday. I'll give you a little taste of the refuges soon.