Great Sand Dunes

Dad and I went to The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve last weekend. It's about a 4 hour drive from Denver and while most of the drive is pretty, the last hour sucks. It makes you appreciate the Dunes even more once you get there. Some highlights within that last hour: passing "The Cosmic Highway" and the Reptile Farm. Yep, out in the valley (possibly in the shadow of doubt) we passed some weirdo who put together a UFO attraction. Then there was the reptile farm where you can see gators and such. We kept right on going. Finally, we could see the Dunes off in the distance. I'd been once before way back when I used to rock climb and we were at Penitente Canyon not too far away. I forgot just how massive they are. Totally impressive...30 square miles of sand.

Day 1: Was mostly cloudy and in the low 60's. We decided to go to the Visitor's Center and then drove to the main parking lot. We walked across what will soon be the creek with water from the snowmelt. Luckily for us, it was dry so our piggies didn't get wet and cold. We just went up one little dune and decided that we would save the big hike for the next day.

The sun finally came out as we were leaving the Park. We were hoping to catch a great sunset but the clouds got in the way.

This is basically what it's like driving down there. Nothingness for miles and miles.

Day 2: We went to a parking lot just north of the main lot because we wanted to see the creek. We start out around 9:30 and it was about 48 degrees and super duper windy. Check out my pants blowing in the wind. I needed my ski goggles.

Almost there! The steepest and softest sand we had to trudge through to get to the highest part we went to (which really wasn't that high comparatively speaking).

View from the highest dune we made it to. We were glad we could finally see what was on the other side...more sand!

The end of the stream. Have you ever seen such a thing? It just...stops. In another month it will extend past the dunes.

Our photographer for the day. Notice the rope blowing off to the left? Damn wind.

I'll post more pictures from Dad's camera once I get them.

Dave update: He thought (and had subsequently told everyone) that the sand came in the jet stream from California. I actually read that stuff they post in the Visitor's Center and had to break the news to Dave that he had been mis-informed. The sand has been there anywhere from 12,000 to 1.5 million years and it's from the surrounding San Luis Mountains and Sangre de Cristo Mountains (the two ranges to the east and west of the Dunes). There is no new sand being added however it stays there as a result of the water, wind and seasons. The sand gets blown into the mountains which then gets washed down the streams and the cycle continues.