The last thing most people expect to see in the southeast corner of Colorado, thousands of miles from the ocean, is the massive sandbox of Great Sand Dunes National Park. It sits in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, made even more beautiful because of the element of surprise in finding giant sand piles seemingly out of nowhere. The sand is actually left over from ancient lakes that receded, leaving sand to be blown into the pocket created by the mountains and forming the highest sand dunes in North America. Here are our recommendations for how you should spend your time in this beautiful park.
Play in the Sand
Sure, you can view the dunes from the visitor center, but the magic of this park is fully realized when you fill your shoes with sand. There’s a special parking area for accessing the dunes, but it’s still a bit of a walk to get out there. In the spring and parts of summer, the Medano Creek flows through the area as snow melt from the mountains runs down. We visited in the middle of July, and the creek was an ice cold trickle. There’s no way to get to the dunes without crossing the creek, so we made our way across the wet sand with little ribbons of flowing water.
There are no trails in the dunes, so we chose a smallish dune to start with. Climbing a sand hill is no joke, especially at an elevation of over 8,000 feet. The sand can be really hot in the summer, but we waited until late afternoon so it wasn’t too bad. We started out with hiking boots, then just climbed in socks. We brought sand sleds and a sand board, so it was even more difficult to get up the dune. Finally we were ready to slide down. It wasn’t as easy as we were hoping. There was definitely some trial and error in waxing the boards, choosing the best location on the dune to slide from, and where to sit on the sled. We had some really fun, fast runs and other times it was frustratingly hard to get going.
No one in our family has snowboarded before, but Jack and I still wanted to try out the sand board. It was a little hard to balance, but it seemed to move more easily than the sleds. Jack was having fun with that until he fell and got a face full of sand and a bloody lip. He stuck to the sled after that! We spent over three hours up on the dunes sledding, boarding, and sitting in the warm sand and enjoying the views. Because the dunes are so expansive, we had our area to ourselves. It was really peaceful.
Attend a Ranger Program
We arrived at the park in early afternoon. It was really hot, so we decided to start our time at Great Sand Dunes with a stop at the Visitor Center. The boys picked up their Junior Ranger books, and we watched the short film about the park. There are several exhibits about the park that are hands-on and kid-friendly so we poked around in there for awhile. We were about to leave when they announced a special ranger program. It was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, and one of the rangers is also a partner with NASA so she spoke about how national parks have been involved in the training and education of astronauts. Then the kids could put on packs and practice picking up “rocks” just like the astronauts did before their mission. She even had an actual rock from the moon for us to touch! It was a great way to beat the heat before hitting the dunes.
We spent only one night here, and that was enough for us. We had a great time out on the dunes, but the campground was swarming with mosquitoes. We camp all summer so we can handle some bugs, but it was more than a few. I think Jack had about 20 on him at one point. It was hard to sit down even to eat without being covered. And this national park is very very rural. It’s surrounded by farming towns that don’t offer much else to do. So one night was perfect for us – just enough time to get sand in everything and then hit the road again!
On The Road Together 