Great Sand Dunes NP, CO - Climbing the Dunes

So, how many of you have ever heard of Great Sand Dune National Park? Not many, I suppose. In fact, I had never heard of until I was looking at a map and drawing a line between Des Moines, IA where we started, to Arizona where we intended to spend a little time. And, there it is, in the middle of Colorado. Sand Dunes in Colorado? The dunes actually are part of a large sand deposit which covers 330 square miles sandwiched between the San Juan Mountains and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Over millions of years, temperature and winds broke up the larger stones of the mountains and deposited them into this valley. With mountains hemming this valley in, there was no place for the sand to blow and now it just swirls around the valley, depending up on the prevailing winds. These are the largest sand dunes in North America. Interestingly enough, the snow melt in the mountains creates two large streams which go around opposite sides of the dune field. Had we come in spring, we could have played in the water. As it is, we get to slog through the sand which is left in the streams and climb the dunes.

We woke up in the morning and put on our hiking clothes - Life is Good. Our goal was to climb the tallest dune in the park. Wait, tallest or highest? Did you even imagine there could be a difference between tallest and highest? Well, there is. The Star Dune is the tallest - measured from the lowest point where you would begin your climb to the top of the dune. Big Dune is the highest - measured from sea level. We learned this later when we were talking with a Ranger about what we had climbed. We climbed the High Dune, the highest.

Was it easy? Oh, sure, just like walking on the beach in dry sand, only at a 45 degree angle up. No, it wasn’t easy, every step forward of 12” resulted in about 5” backwards. At one point I lost my balance and fell on my hands and knees trying to climb up. Half the time I was carrying tons, I tell you, tons, of sand in my shoes, weighing me down.

The technique was to choose a ridge line and climb it up. It’s just like climbing a mountain, lots of switchbacks. Don’t just climb straight up - it may look shorter but it will be much longer. Note that Gary here is making his own trail. He must know something that no one else knows.

Were they fun to climb? Absolutely, a struggle but reaching the top is the best. At one point, we aimed for what we thought was the Big Dune, only to realize that the Big Dune was off to the left and we were slogging right. We also enjoyed watching others. We began behind a foursome and were following them but, at one point, we thought we had a better line to the top and diverged. We soon passed them and, as they wandered horizontally to the right, we climbed vertically to the left. We lost sight of them soon after until, as we were climbing down, we saw two of them climbing over the same ridge we had on their way the top.

Getting down was so much easier though, not as easy as I thought. I still had to put one foot in front of the other and, after climbing that dune, I was having a hard time of doing that.

Lunch back at the RV then off to the Visitor Center to see the film and see exhibits explaining the dunes. The Ranger also told us of the Zapata Falls that we could DRIVE up to and only have to walk 1/2 mile. That’s the ticket and we were off. Rocky pine-covered alpine trail but with a bubbling stream tumbling over rocks right before the falls.

Here’s Gary beside the stream before he disappeared inside the cave to see the falls which was really two falls. Spectacular, in a desert region to see this much water. Since there was still snow on the tops of the mountains, this falls will last a while. We hear that it tuns to ice in the winter and is fun to slide down.

The aspens are absolutely gorgeous, just beginning their color. We were climbing through some aspen groves and just entranced with the color.

As we walked back, we noticed a trail sign which said ‘Zapata Lakes’ with an arrow pointing up. Putting a trail sign in front of Nancy and Gary is like waving a worm in front of a fish. Enticing. And, thus we found ourselves wending our way up an unknown mountain, on an unknown trail to an unknown destination. We had no clue where we were going nor how long it would take to get there. But, we were in the moment and enjoying the trail. We kept going and going, and we didn’t have a clue how far the Lakes were. But, we hate to quit before we reach the goal.

At one point, we must have startled some animal which rushed down the hill away from us. We looked its way and saw this deer, ‘hiding’ in the bushes.

Finally, as the sun was heading down and we had seen no sight of any lakes, we said 15 more minutes. 15 minutes later and still no sight, we turned around and headed back. Luckily we did, we learned later that the Lakes were 4 miles in.

The cap to our adventures of the day was to stop at a small restaurant at the gates to the Park and have a piece of pie. The Pie Lady is renown in this area and we certainly want to partake of all that the park offered. We got there 3 minutes before closing, looked at the 3 pieces of pie they had left and decided to head on back to the RV. I was really ready for mixed berry or something in the fruit line with ice cream but all they had was a chocolate pudding with whipped cream, banana cream and some raspberry cream. Oh, well.

As we approached the Park, we had a great view of the sand dunes, the grassy prairie in front and craggy mountains beyond. In the right sun, the play of the shadows over the dunes is eerie and shows the heights even better than a sunny picture.

And, of course, what’s a blog without a sunset picture? Note the virga rain trying to reach ground, which it never did.

What a great park with two very different types of terrain to hike in: huge sand dunes and an alpine trail wending through aspens and pinon pine beside a bubbling brook. And, to think, we had never heard of this park. Our National Parks are marvelous and full of surprises.