Great Sand Dunes National Park

We had a couple of hours available to see Great Sand Dunes National Park today on our long road trip. We decided to climb up some of the shorter dunes closer to the mountain. There are no trails in the sand dunes, the park asks that we don't step on the fragile plants, otherwise to have fun exploring. We did about 3 miles round trip with 300 ft of gain.

First we crossed Medano Creek, which was easy today.

After the creek, in some places there is still lots of sand to cross before reaching the dunes.

There are 30 square miles of sand dunes here, the tallest sand dunes in North America are here.

We walked along Medano Creek for about a mile until we reached some of the shorter sand dunes that were closer to the Sangre Cristo Mountains.

Here the sand dunes were closer to the creek and we were able to walk on the firmer sand by the creek.

We then went up and up the sand dunes.

We enjoyed being up on the sand dunes with this fabulous view of the mountains!

So beautiful in all directions!

The footsteps we left in the sand will soon disappear.

We heard galloping, looked down to see 2 horses and their riders along the creek bed.

Beautiful mountain views on the way back.

Fall colors