Great Sand Dunes National Park

It's catch up time again before I forget where we've been. After leaving the Blue River we headed to southern Colorado and the Great Sand Dunes National Park. It's a small but very beautiful park with great hiking and wonderful vistas. The dunes are really interesting. The sand particles have formed over time in the San Juan Mountains of CO and have been blown east to the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains where they continue to swirl and grow in elevation. The highest dune is 750' making it the highest in the US. The dunes combined with the mountains and high desert terrain make for great vistas. In the spring the snows melt in the Sangre de Cristos and the water flows along the base of the dunes as Medano Creek, a wide shallow creek that creates a playground for folks to enjoy. When we were there there was just a trace of water surfacing along the dunes. It was a strange feeling to hike to the dunes leaving footprints only to see no trace that I had been there on the return trip. Makes you think just a little!