Great Sand Dunes

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When I first heard about the Great Sand Dunes National Park, of course I wanted to check it out. Who wouldn't? The largest sand dunes in North America, they rise over 750 feet above the valley. They lie against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. They're at an elevation of 8200 feet.

For once Beth and I actually had two of the same couple of days off, and since that never happens, we were super happy to go camping. It was a four hour drive down to the Sand Dunes, which are located in the southern part of Colorado. We left after work on Sunday night, but after construction and accidents on the highway, we didn't get to the dunes until after 9pm. Since there's only two campsites in the dunes and you can't make reservations in either of them, they were all filled up by the time we got there. We ended up spending the night sleeping in the jeep in the Wal-Mart parking lot, along with a bunch of other rv'ers and campers that couldn't get into the campground.

Not our preferred way to start the trip, but we hurried to the campground early the next moring and grabbed a prime spot. Right next to a bubbling creek, it was a gorgeous site. The sand dunes themselves were cool, but not as amazing as I thought. Maybe we are spoiled, growing up so close to the Indiana Dunes. But the Great Sand Dunes were still interesting. There's a creek that runs through the dunes, Medano Creek. It flows around the base of the dunes. Medano Creek exhibits a phenomenon called "surge flow." Its surges are like the surf at a beach. Each time a surge occurs, a mound of sand (which had temporarily dammed some of the water in the creek bed), collapses. Early spring, when flow is the highest, it's possible to "swim" in the water, and some people even skimboard.

We also checked out the Great Sand Dunes Hot Springs, which was the perfect temperature out in the cool summer day. All in all, I don't know if it was worth a 8 hour round trip drive, but I'm glad we got the chance to check it out. I love that we've lived here for a year, and are really getting to know the different parts of Colorado that make it such a great state to live in!

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Comments

[Snowhawg]

Very Nice
Colorado does have an awful lot of beautiful places. Some of your photos look almost like paintings. Did you do something to make them look that way?