Images of Great Sand Dunes National Park – middle Colorado, taken in July 2016.

Shaped by the combination of prevailing winds from the southwest, storm winds off of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and added assistance from two creek systems combine to tell the story of the creation of North America’s tallest dunes which are protected in Great Sand Dunes National Park.

The vast dune field includes two dunes over 699 feet tall and is one of the few places in the world where one can see “surge flow” on a stream. Surge flow occurs when water flows over sand and small sand dams are created on the creek bed holding the water until the pressure gets too great and the dam breaks releasing the water in a wave. This event is more pronounced in the spring and early summer but I was still able to see a scaled down version in Medano Creek during my visit (see image #2, second to the last row).

Depending on the time of day and weather conditions the dunes can take on a different appearance from moment to moment. Sunrise, sunset, cloudy, windy, wet, dry; the way the light strikes the dunes reveal interesting views as the shadows crawl across the sand.

I hiked several trails with the most demanding being the hike to the summit of the second tallest dune in the park, High Dune. Normally a 2.5 mile hike with an elevation gain of 699 feet would be considered a moderate hike at best. However take your basic beach sand and build a 699 foot dune and you add another level of difficulty that will challenge even the most experienced hikers…of which I am not one. The hike was grueling and I was certainly happy that I started early in the morning before the heat of the day could compound the struggle. You couldn’t go straight up the thing so the idea was to follow a set of progressively higher dune ridges until you attained the summit. Walking along the ridgelines was exponentially easier; unfortunately you had to scramble your way onto each ridge. Either way you had to climb 699 feet of sand, the ridges just gave you time to recuperate a bit before the next ascent. My climbing technique was to take twenty steps and stop to catch my breath…or what was left of it…then take twenty more and repeat until I made it to the top. The reward was an incredible 360 degree view of the entire dune field, and the knowledge that it was truly “all downhill from here”!