6/6/19 - Great Sand Dunes National Park

We took some pictures of Fort Garland.  There was not much there, but Blance Peak towers over the town...  I had no idea there were 6 14'ers (peaks over 14,000 feet) in the Sangre de Christo range.

The sand dunes are the big draw, but the dunes are separated from the parking and visitor center by Medano Creek, which was seasonal, but flowing pretty well when we were there.  The interesting fact is that it actually had a wave action going.  Evidently,  the water pushes the sand until enough is built up that it blocks the water, and then as more water flows in, it breaks down the block, creating a "wave".

The big activity is climbing the dune and sliding down on various devices (sandboards??, inner tubes, sleds??).  We climbed up the first, pretty low dune, and called it done...

We hiked a little up the Mosca Pass Trail and you can see the dunes in the background.  It was one of the few passes through the Sangre de Christos and was popular enough that someone (probably named Mosca) set up a toll booth at the top....  We only went a little way up (our excuse was adjusting to the altitude).

Susie suggested we drive the unimproved road up to the "Point of No Return".  It was only one land and very sandy at the beginning, and even though we had a 4WD SUV, I was a little intimidated (when we were overtaken by a Land Cruiser and then a Jeep).  So, I turned around after just a bit.  (And then we passed a group of hikers going up in a minivan.....

We took the long way back to Fort Garland and found Alamosa. Colorado (and this brew pub). 

It looked like a neat little town, much livelier than Fort Garland.  They even had a number of old British cars parked along the main drag.  But it didn't seem to be a car show.  It seemed more like a grand tour with these old cars.  Pretty neat....

We also began to see signs for the Old Spanish trail and were intrigued.  It turns out that this entire area (including the Great Sand Dunes) is part of the San Luis Valley, which is the headwaters of the Rio Grande River.  It is bounded on the east by the Sangre de Christo range, and on the north and west by the San Juan range.

Back in the 1820's, the settlers were looking for a trail between Santa Fe and Los Angeles.  They were trying to find a way around the major obstacles - the Continental Divide, the Colorado River and the Mojave Desert.  One of the routes went through the San Luis Valley, and another variation went through Durango and up to Moab.

Link to next post:  6/7 - To Mesa Verde