Colorado No photograph could have prepared us for the scale of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. When we arrived just before sunset, the height of the stark, buff-colored, wind-sculpted dunes was emphasized by the flat, scrub open rangeland in the foreground, the deep shadows that sculpted their form, and by the dark blue-green Sangre de Cristo Mountains rising behind them. Storm clouds swirled dramatically around the snow-topped mountains, where snow had fallen earlier in the day. Although there are mountain, woodland and wetland trails in the 30 square miles of dunes, we chose the undesignated trails along the ridges and concavities created by the winds. We wandered into the dunes, a big sandbox where many children, including some teens and adults, run, roll and slide. Our progress was slow as we struggled up
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