Great Sand Dunes National Park

Where would you go if you wanted to find the biggest sand dunes in North America? You'd find the biggest sand dunes in North America in southern Colorado, of course, right at the base of the Rocky Mountains.

This is an interesting park. It's quite small, and the dunes are pretty much the only feature. There's no scenic drive, there are very few hikes to speak of, but there are 30 square miles of sand dunes, and they are quite tall which was great after our last visit to a park with "Dunes" in the name that left the kids disappointed in the lack of large dunes.

This picture doesn't do justice to the sheer amount of sand

So what did we do? We played in the sand, of course!

Our campsite was within sight of the dunes, so we visited multiple times during the week. Our first visit was a tad breezy.

This is fairly normal, and it actually explains why the dunes are here. Two creeks carry sand out of the mountains, and there is a prevailing southwesterly wind that pushes it back towards the mountains, piling it up at their base.

The kids didn't seem to mind the wind. The blowing sand was constrained to within 6 inches of the ground, so as long as you stayed higher than that you were clear. Of course, all of our shoes were full of sand and some of it even made it into our socks. The sand here is super fine, so it is adept at getting into very small spaces.

Due to the windy conditions, we decided not to summit the dunes during that visit. Walking in very fine sand is hard enough. Walking in very fine sand during a windstorm is not at all enjoyable. If you haven't experienced it, you'll just have to take my word for that.

But we did return later in the week on a calm day. We rented sand sleds from a local store and hit the slopes. The boys and I had to get to the top of the highest dune (naturally), and the girls chose to stay in the foothills, which were more than sufficient for sledding.

This may be a good time to mention that I'm not in as good of shape as I once was. Have I mentioned that hiking in sand is hard? Multiply that by 1.5 miles with a 750 foot elevation gain, and, yeah... the old legs were burning. But we all made it to the top, at which time Caleb promptly slid down a few hundred feet on his belly and wandered off to dunes unknown.

There goes my intrepid explorer

I figured he'd just go find Julie and Jordan. I wouldn't see him again for another hour when I found him by the parking lot. He couldn't find the girls on his way back, so he just hung out and amused himself, totally unconcerned. I was picturing him passed out from dehydration, but he didn't even realize I had his water.

Funny story: Before Caleb wandered out of view, he spent some time playing in the sand at the bottom of the hill on which Asher and I were still perched. We were up there with a few boy scouts and their leaders. At one point one of the men stopped mid-sentence and said, "That person keeps walking a few feet and then falling down. Should we go help?" It did kind of look like a person in distress, but I informed him that the person was my son and that "walking a few feet and then falling down" was pretty standard sand play for him. I was walking next to those exact same people when I ran back into Caleb near the parking lot. Remember, this is about an hour later. They looked at me with a "you haven't seen him in an hour?" sort of look. But when they saw he was totally fine, they probably started wishing their scouts were more like my son!

The reason it was an hour later is because Asher and I chose to sled down the dunes. I hauled the sled all the way up, so I was going to ride it down! Why did it take an hour to sled down a hill, you ask? Well, it turns out that sledding on sand is quite different from sledding on snow. I've done the latter many, many times, but I've never done the former.

Julie showed me how to wax the board before I took off up the hill. This is a critical step since you are essentially trying to sled down sandpaper. I declined to do any practice runs because I know from past sledding experience that every ride down a hill equals a hike back up said hill. I didn't want to waste precious energy, so my first run was going to be from the very top all the way down to the very bottom. That's how I envisioned it, at least. In reality it was 4 or 5 fragmented runs interspersed with a lot of walking.

Oh, and two very solid wipeouts, one of which was when I was riding tandem with Asher. Oddly enough, they were my first two runs. Maybe I should have practiced.

Have you ever wiped out sledding a snow hill? Depending on the ice content of the surface, it can be an unpleasant experience, but that's kind of your own fault for sledding on ice. Assuming there is no ice, you'll likely end up with snow down your shirt and pants. But as long as you avoid rocks and trees, you'll typically be no worse for wear.

Fortunately there were no rocks or trees to worry about at the dunes. Just sand. Lots and lots of sand. Sand everywhere. Have you ever laid down in the sand at the beach? Have you ever laid down in the sand at the beach while wet? Have you ever had a front loader drop 5 tons of sand on top of you and had to dig your way out? I haven't, but I imagine it's a comparable experience to that of wiping out while sand sledding. I had sand in places where I didn't know sand could get.

My enduring memory of this experience will be regaining my bearings after my tandem wipeout with Asher and immediately trying to find him and make sure he wasn't hurt. He was a few feet up the hill from me, sitting on his knees with a dazed look on his face. He wanted to cry but couldn't because sand was clogging all areas from which tears or audible cries would emerge. He looked like he had sand grills (an interesting look if anyone wants to give it a go).

[Fun fact: I'm writing this at a laundromat in Albuquerque where I'm washing all of our clothes and sheets to remove the sand.]

After confirming that he wasn't hurt (he wasn't), I tried to go with the "see, now you know what it feels like to wipe out, and you're fine" strategy, but he wasn't having any of it. He brushed himself off the best he could (there's only so much you can do for sand in every hole in your head) and stormed off down the hill on foot.

That was my opening to try a solo run!

My solo run very quickly went sideways... or more accurately, backwards. I had yet to figure out how to steer the sled, so I almost immediately spun around backwards. I decided to go with it (I didn't have much choice, since gravity seemed to be winning). I rode it for what felt like a long time but was probably only a few seconds when I must have put too much weight on the back end (which was facing forward), causing it to dig just a little too much into the sand, sending me head over heels. Or heels over head. Or probably both. I think I rolled multiple times down the hill.

I got a cheer for that one from a stranger on the next dune over, so I consider it a success. Unfortunately, since Asher was storming down the hill at the time, I don't have video or eyewitness evidence from someone in my own family. But take it from the sand that's still lodged in various locations in my body, it happened, and it was almost certainly spectacular.

[Another fun fact: We didn't have a water hookup at our last site, and there were no public showers. So I haven't showered since this incident. Yes, I am still finding sand on and in me.]

Long story short, Asher composed himself and wanted to try again (good for him!). We attempted a few different strategies for steering (silly me, thinking that the sled just knew which way to go). We finally settled on me holding the sled handles and him steering with his hands in the sand. It worked great, and we got two really nice runs in before we reached the bottom!

We met up with Julie and Jordan, who had decided that sledding was boring and was sandboarding instead. We may have to get this girl onto some snow!

Bottom line: If you ever have a chance to go sand sledding, immediately head north from wherever you are and drive as far as necessary to find snow instead.