Did you know that Colorado is the home to the tallest sand dunes in North America? I didn’t, in fact I was surprised when I saw Great Sand Dunes National Park in some Colorado tourist information I was reading. The NP is about a half hour north east of the town of Alamosa.

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That's me about 1/4 of the way to the first ridge.

Some history on the dunes straight from the NP brochure (with a bit of editing). Wind and water move sand, continually forming dunes. Most sand comes from the San Juan Mountains, over 65 miles to the west. Larger, rougher grains and pebbles come from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (just east of the dunes) . Sand and sediments from both ranges washed into a huge lake once covering the valley floor. As the lake reduced, prevailing southwesterly winds bounced the sand grains to be piled up beneath the Sangre de Cristos. Storm winds from the northeast blast through mountain passes, piling dunes back on themselves, creating North America’s tallest dunes. A video also explained to us that the winter snow high in the Sangre de Cristos melts in the spring creating 2 creeks that carry sand down from the mountains. The creeks surround the dunes. When the creek beds dry up, the southwesterly winds blow the sand into the dunes. Unfortunately, this part of Colorado didn't have much snow last winter so the creek is already dry.

This area is very interesting as it has a mountain range, sand dunes and wetlands. Even though this area receives very little rain each year, the melting snow has created an aquifer beneath the surface creating wetlands just west of the sand dunes.

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Looking up the dunes. You can see the Sangre de Cristos mountains in the background.

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One of the fun things to do on the dunes is toboggan or sand board down them. This fellows dog joined in on the fun. Note to self don't wear running shoes with mesh on the top when hiking in sand dunes. I think I had a cup of sand in both shoes.

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Looking back at where we had hiked. In the middle of the photo at the top of the ridge is some people. Well, that's where we hiked to. It's the first ridge.

After driving about 5 km up a rough gravel road into the mountains, you reach the parking lot for the Zapata Waterfalls trail. The trail is about 0.4 km ending at a creek. To see the falls you tromp through the ice cold creek into a slot canyon where the water has slowly cut a channel through the rock creating the waterfalls. Our running shoes had been filled with sand at the dunes so they were sort of cleaned as we walked in the creek. The cold water did make my feet feel better. As there is no humidity here it shouldn’t take long for the shoes to dry. The weather network indicates a high of 28 C but feels like 27 C --- a little different then what we’re use to.

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