Castles in the Sand

We made our way slowly to Great Sand Dunes National Park (the truck was a little reluctant on the mountain passes). It's strange though because as you come out of the mountains, the valleys are flat (like Kansas flat) and then you almost immediately get back into large mountains again. The scenery changes dramatically, and quickly.

Just outside of the Sand Dunes National Park is San Luis Valley. It's very expansive and flat, yet surrounded an all sides by 14,000 foot mountains. We got to our campsite, set up our tent and cooked some dinner. This park had signs everywhere that say things to the effect of: “Bear encounters frequent. Use precautions to avoid bear problems.” If that doesn't give you warm fuzzies...

After dinner, we took a walking trail from our campsite out to the dunes and walked around a bit. It's so strange. There's 700 foot piles of sand that look like they've come out of the middle of nowhere and been placed right at the foot of the giant Sangre de Cristo mountains.

So, where did it come from? Most of the sand originates in the San Juan Mountains, over 65 miles to the west. Streams, creeks, melting snow and flash floods bounced the sand grains to the foot of the mountains where they piled up. They're estimated to be over 12,000 years old. The dunes are the the tallest in North America and cover more than 330 square miles. And because of the winds, they're always changing. On any given day, they will never look exactly the same.

We walked around a bit and took tons of pictures. The wind was blowing pretty good when we were out there, so you could see how these are created and change. In the dry sand, your footprints are gone almost as soon as you make them. The sand itself is very fine too. You feel as if you're walking down a sandy, tropical beach. A bit further down we saw bear tracks headed in the same direction we were going (that giant paw was unmistakable), so we turned around and headed back. We made a fire with our eight pieces of kindling and went to bed.