Wilderness Wandering

October 24-25

Great Sand Dunes is a high altitude desert highly dependent on water.

We arrived at the 14th and last National Park of this leg of our journey around 10 AM. We did our picture and passport business and enjoyed the movie at the visitor center.

Our first stop was the Sand Dune Trailhead. There Is no official trail, but there are plenty of footprints to follow! Our destination was High Dune at 688 feet tall. It isn’t the highest point in the park. Star Dune at 736feet is the tallest. But Star Dune a 7 mile round trip. We weren’t looking for that level of challenge.

High Dune is the closest great viewpoint to the parking lot, a 2.6 mile round trip entirely in sand. We made some sandwiches and hiked up to enjoy a picnic. There were some very steep parts that gave us a great workout. For every step you took forward, you slid back halfway. The sand is mesmerizing! The patterns and light and shadow and animal prints, all were gorgeous!

We met a few people along the way. We met Brad, middle aged man carrying a sand board ( like a snow board) who was traveling with his mom. We also met an older couple from Switzerland traveling the US for 2 months. Another couple we spoke with were heading to KS to do the Katy Trail Bike Ride, one of our favorites.

We wandered around the picnic area adjacent to the parking lot to see Medano Creek. About 6 months of the year Medano Creek flows past the base of these sand dunes. The Medano Creek is very unique. It is swift, shallow and seasonal and has very mysterious surge flows. Unfortunately, in mid October, it is a dry river bed at the base of the dunes. I think it would be a blast to visit in summer and have the creek to cool off in after a warm hike on the dunes.

This same area is where it is popular to sand sled or ski. We weren’t really feeling it, so we didn’t try that activity.

Next we did a 1 mile interpretive trail along the sweet Mosca Creek. The colors of the leaves were at their peak. There we met a newly wed couple around our age from Watertown, WI, only 15 miles from where we live. Pam was passionate about her work with monarch butterflies.

After that we went to find our campsite at the Pinon Flats Campground inside the park. The campground is quite large with 3 loops and newly remodeled bathrooms! This late in the season, there were quite a few open sites. The first loop has super views of the dunes.

We did one more 2 mile hike before dinner. It was the Overlook hike that began at the campground. Beautiful views of the dunes from a forest. 

We had a campfire and a light dinner. 

We were able to see a spectacular sunset from our site. We tried to do some stargazing. This is a dark sky park, but the evening was fairly cloudy, so stargazing didn’t amount to much.

Wednesday

Pinon Flats was such a dark, quiet campground that we slept quite well. It seems it froze over night. Our chairs we left by the campfire had a little frost on them. 

We had a good hot breakfast and got ready for the day. 

We took one last hike, The 2 mile Ditch Trail. The name is rather unattractive, but the trail was lovely! We passed a field full of buck mule deer on our way out of the park.

We are on our way back to WI with a few stops to visit friends along the way. 

What a fantastic first multi park trip this has been!

We saw 14 National Parks to add to the six we had seen previously for a total of 20 so far!

We hope to resume the adventure in January 2024! 

Thanks for following along with us!