After leaving Mesa Verde, I followed US 160 east with a brief stop in Pagosa Springs for an excellent fish & chips dinner at the Pagosa Brewing Company – the beer was pretty good as well. By the time I was nearing Great Sand Dunes darkness was approaching and I didn’t feel like paying for a camping spot. Instead, I pulled up short of the park and drove up the Como Lake Road onto free lands with very few amenities. In fact, the amenity list barely included level and flat ground, but the price was right. Unfortunately, the wind gusted most of the night, rattling the tent and producing little sleep. At least I’d gotten a good rest in the trees at Mancos State Park the previous night.
Waiting for sunrise to reach the tent, I brewed up a quick cup of coffee, threw everything into the car and basted the heater as I finished the drive into the Great Sand Dunes. I had high hopes of spending at least one night camping in the dunes, near this full moon. However, the wind made me rethink that plan as I set out for a day hike up the two most popular dunes.
I seemed to be the first to head out into the dunes on this cold and windy morning.
The sun was out, but it’s warm was little felt and I was hiking with an insulated jacket and gloves.
Surprisingly, the uphill dune walking did little to warm me up.
However, I was finding some similarities between the dunes and snow-clad mountains. It seemed the wind or moisture had packed some of the sand into firmer paths on some spots, and softer, lee-slopes in others.
I also discovered that walking backwards prevented my toe from “pushing off” and digging into the sand, and keeping a very flat foot relative to the slope angle was helpful for efficient progress.
After about a hour of hiking I reached High Dune and setup my camera on a mini-tripod for a hero shot.
Something else I discovered – the wind blown sand was much more prominent near the dune surface than a foot or move above. Bring a larger tripod would be my advice, as the camera’s moving parts attracted a lot of sand.
I decided to continue on to Star Dune, the next big dune to the west.
The hike there took about another hour, and a bit more route-finding with a few intermediate dunes.
The sand my camera had acquired continued to work deeper into the motorized parts and pretty soon the shutter would only open with a little assistance.
The last 100 feet of the climb of Star Dune was a sand slope at the most extreme angle of repose for the grains. Each step would send a 3-foot radius of snow to find a new stable point and as much as 80% of each upward step would collapse and sink before holding.
By the time I reached the top I was feeling done with the desert environments I’d been visiting for the last 5 days. My camera was also refusing to even open anymore. Deciding I’d done enough here, and learning that I wasn’t a desert rat (I’m definitely more of a forest/alpine monkey) I made a beeline back for the trailhead and braved Denver rush-hour traffic to get home a little early.
Don’t like desert much myself either.
I like it well enough for short visits, but 5 days turned out to be a bit much for me.