Posts Tagged With: Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preerve

Alamosa CO, June 3, 2021

No history lesson today. We spent our time visiting a national park and several wildlife refuges. Nothing high-powered, just an enjoyable day in a different part of the country. Today’s national park, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, has received a lot of hype lately as an under appreciated and less visited park. It seems many people read those comments and decided to put this park on their to visit list.

We left the Best Western hotel in Alamosa in time to reach the park for the 8:30 AM opening of the visitor center. Unfortunately, we made a mistake, not sure how that happened, since the visitor center opened at 9 AM. We took the brief nature walk by the visitor center and then got in line. The walk put us at number two in line instead of number one.

Now, despite being married for over 48 years and having hundreds of days of travel together, we can still differ on how to prioritize our day. Chris wanted to wait in line for the quick stamping of our National Park passport book. Only five people were going to be allowed in the front vestibule for the quick stamping process. I thought it was wiser to go to the back entrance to gain access to the bookstore and ranger information desk. 12 people were allowed in there but their time inside was likely to be longer.

I should have just gone back there rather than waiting with Chris. Made me grouchy, for a short while, as we waited for 9 AM to arrive and the passport book to be stamped. We did have to wait at the bookstore entrance but only for about five minutes before we entered and bought two postcards. In my defense, I was concerned about parking at the sand dune area. Big signs as we came in told everyone to anticipate Limited Parking and Heavy Traffic Expected.

Great Sand Dunes is an anomaly. At the foot of the Sangre De Christo mountains is an area of sand. Sand that one might expect at a nice ocean beach. Acres and acres of sand (30 square miles). High dunes of sand reaching 750 feet. The total park and preserve is over 232 square miles of forest and mountains but most attention is paid to the sand dunes.

Given the unique nature of the park and the heavy hype, I wanted to make sure we were at the dunes area in time for easy parking. Turns out we did fine, got a nice parking spot. My concerns were not unfounded though since from the dunes we later saw long lines of cars coming in and cars being parked way down the road leading to the parking area.

Unlike say, Sleeping Bear Dunes Lakeshore in Michigan, a visitor tromps through Medano Creek before walking through a rocky/sandy area prior to reaching the pure, soft sand of the dunes. As you can probably guess, we did not walk up 750 feet of sand to reach the top of the dunes. Walking in sand is tiring and the elevation here is 7,500 feet above sea level. We put in 45 minutes of climbing up and another 45 minutes climbing down. The weather was perfect, low 70s and practically no wind.

Most visitors were not here to hike to the top of the dunes. Great Sand Dunes replaces a day at the ocean for people in mid-continent America. Sliding down dunes or sitting alongside Medano Creek were the chosen activities. No need to over exert yourself for either of those options. Sure, some younger folks had plans to hike to the top, but they were the exception.

Medano Creek had already reached its peak depth on May 23; today it was 1-4 inches deep. Snow depth in the mountains was lower than usual this year. The creek spreads out, reaching 20-40 feet wide. Eventually the creek starts to dry up unless significant rainfall occurs in the summer.

Why are there sand dunes here? A very brief explanation is wind. Rocks erode and sand and gravel normally wash downstream. Here the mountain ranges create a wind flow that becomes almost circular, keeping the sand in this area and forming dunes.

It was a little early for lunch but we decided to stay and have lunch in a quiet, shaded area away from the dunes. It gave us a chance to continue to enjoy the day without my hyper-ventilating about parking.

Post lunch we visited Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge and Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge. Both have auto tour routes. Both were practically deserted. Both had only a few bird types evident. Red-winged blackbirds were abundant. We heard new bird cries unfamiliar to us but the birds did not reveal themselves. During the spring and fall migration periods, sandhill cranes are abundant. The time spent did not make for a majestic time, but it was pleasant.

Before coming here, we paid no attention to the headwaters of the Rio Grande River. Probably a bit provincial for people well aware of the headwaters of the Mississippi River. As we arrived in Alamosa and saw signs at bridges noting that we were crossing the Rio Grande River, we said “the Rio Grande? Here?” Sure enough, the Rio Grande River begins in the forests and mountains 60 miles northwest of Alamosa. In our minds there is almost as much water in the Rio Grande in Alamosa as there was in the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park when we visited in April of 2018. So much water is drawn off for irrigation and drinking as it flows through low rainfall areas that little is left by the time it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

Friday morning we head to Cortez CO and Mesa Verde National Park. Mesa Verde we expect to be crowded and hot.

Post script. Yesterday’s blog left out two photo scenes that I had meant to include so the pics are below. The pictures are of the gondola over the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River and of fossil samples from the Florissant Fossil Beds.

Ed Heimel, Chris Klejbuk Alamosa Thursday June 3, 2021