Great Sand Dunes NP, CO - Western Forts and Sand Dunes

Up early again (must we make this a habit?) so we could drive 180+ miles to our next destination, the Great Sand Dunes National Park, get a good campsite on a first come, first served basis but still stop and see Fort Garland, an old western fort commanded at one time by Kit Carson. The trick is that we are 35’ long and the spots into which we can sandwich this large an RV are few at this National Park. Most of the campsites at National Parks were built long ago before RV’s became 30’ to 45’ long. We’re glad we don’t have a longer RV since 35’ is at the outer limit for many of the National Parks.

Hey, luckily we got up early since we had a long detour. We lost in the detour the time we had throught to gain by arising early. Shucks.

There’s something about driving in the mountains that brings a bit of nagging fear to us flatlanders - it’s the ‘grade’, the angle at which you come down. Now, in a car, it’s no big deal, just apply the brakes a bit. However, we weigh 30,000 lbs and are towing a 4000 lb Jeep, and a ‘applying the brakes a little bit’ in an RV is as effective as using a toothbrush to clean a carrier. Of course, the trick is to be in the right gear and let the motor slow you down the grades. Gary does this well and we’ve never had problems. However, possibly it’s the thought of the downhill grade that we fear more than the downhill grade itself.

Today we cimbed up to a 9410’ summit and didn’t even notice we had reached the top until we began to go down, more gently than we had envisioned. We kept thinking that we had only reached a ‘faux’ summit and that the real summit was ahead of us around the next peak. Nope, we just kept going down and down and there we were in the valley. Now, that kind of summit we can enjoy. In 3 days we have a 10,000+ ‘ summit with a series of switchbacks. Think what that is doing to my imagination.

Fort Garland was built in 1858 and served as a fort until 1883. It originally had 22 adobe buildings, housed several thousand soldiers at it height and was commanded by Kit Carson at one point. The coming of the railroad and the removal of the Indians to other areas brought an end to Fort Garland’s service and the fort closed. By the 1920’s, most of the buildings had crumbled, been stripped of anything valuable and it looked as this bit of history would pass unknown. However, a local educator organized a Historical Group that cared for the fort until 1945. They excavated, curated, rebuilt some of the fort and finally sold to the Colorado Historical Society which made an extensive renovation and added a multitude of exhibits about life in a fort in the West.

Here’s a rendering of the actual fort. I’ve always thought of forts as having walls all around for protection. Here is an actual fort without any outside walls. The long buildings in the front are the stables where the horses were kept.

What did we learn about American History from this fort? We learned about the Buffalo Soldiers, African American soldiers who served in the American army after the Civil War. When I as a child watched old westerns with soldiers at a fort, I never saw an African American. Did you? Actually, they were about 20% of the American Army after the Civil War and, since they were not placed in the South to serve, they were a much larger percentage in the West, possible 40%. Did you know that? Why did our TV programs never show this?

And, they were called Buffalo Soldiers by the Indians since their hair resembled the thick curly hair on a buffalo’s shoulders. Here’s a bunk house where the soldiers lived. They were issued one blanket by the Army and in the winter were fairly cold unless they had enough rank to get their bed near the stove in the middle of the room. This room actually held considerably more men than this implies. One winter, when several companies of men were moved to the fort to help quell the Indians, they slept outside in tents with their one blanket - in the winter.

Secondly we learned about the service of Kit Carson, who is usually thought of as an American Hero. But - not by the Indians. To the white settlers, he was responsible for keeping them safe and removing the Indian threat. To the Indians, he was responsible for raiding Indian villages and destroying them, he was responsible for hunting many down and killing them. However, he was only a ‘man of his times’ and treated the Indians as everyone else was. Personally he was friendly with many Native Americans and spoke their language. (Actually, he could not read nor write but he spoke 5 languages.) Most of his exploits are a matter of record and show that he was much more restrained in his actions than others in his ranks.

We also learned a lot about life in a western frontier fort, about the fierceness of the Comanches and how they probably held back settlement in this area for many years.

However, if we wanted a spot in the campground at the National Park, we had to move on. On our way to the park we noticed that the nearby mountains still had snow in the upper reaches.

As we neared the park we could see the sand dunes, high above the surrounding land, though dwarfed by the Sangre de Cristo mountains behind them. I find driving into a National Park almost magical with possibilities. We especially like camping in the National Parks, in the center of the action, close to the natural beauty and trails. There are usually no hook-ups but the ambiance more than compensates for this.

As we pulled into the entrance station, the ranger there told us that we could park in the host spot since the host was no longer there. We found this spot, thought the view of the sand dunes pretty amazing and set up.

Here’s the view from our living room window. Pretty awesome. I’ve left the RV in the lower left in the picture so you can see the size of these dunes. These dunes are the tallest in North America - and they’re in Colorado, territory usually thought of as mountainous.

In the evening the sun put on a magnificent show over the mountains on the other side of the valley, outlining the virga rain.