When we got home from Yellowstone in September 2023, we set our sights on Colorado as our next big national park trip. There are four national parks in Colorado, spread out around the state. We started working on a plan to fly into Denver and circle the state, ending up in Rocky Mountain for a long weekend with Greg’s parents.
There’s always something stressful right before a big trip, and this time it was health related – our oldest daughter was diagnosed with pneumonia three days before our flight to Denver. There was really nothing to do but start an antibiotic and trust that she would feel better by the time we left. Thankfully, she was fine, aside from a pesky cough, and we arrived in Denver right on schedule.
We packed a lot into our week-long Colorado schedule, resulting in very early mornings, full days, and late nights. The day we arrived, we picked up our rental car (a beefy white Suburban) plus groceries for the week, and drove a few hours south to our “Dune View” rental house in Mosca just outside the sand dunes. We stopped for dinner in Colorado Springs and saw a sign for Focus on the Family headquarters, which took me right back to my childhood with Adventures in Odyssey!
Our day in the Great Sand Dunes started with an early breakfast and a stop at the Oasis store to rent a few sandboards. Mosca is the size of a thimble, with a population of about 1,000 and practically no restaurants or gas stations but we still found artisan coffee at a place called Ruby Rose Bakery. We were bundled up in our coats and hats because it was right around 40 degrees as we approached the dunes. The park entry road is an incredible view – a long row of sandy dunes right in front of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, bordered with fields of bright yellow wildflowers.
Our first experience with dunes was in the North Carolina Outer Banks, at Jockey’s Ridge State Park, in July 2019 during our state park challenge. Jockey’s Ridge has some sizable dunes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and Roanoke Sound.
Two years later, we were at White Sands in New Mexico. White Sands National Park is a huge area of dunes, although they’re actually gypsum, not sand.
In 2022, we visited Indiana Dunes, on the shore of Lake Michigan. The Indiana Dunes are fewer but steeper, a real challenge to climb!
There’s a reason this place in Colorado is called the “Great” Sand Dunes – they are truly the highest and most massive dunes I’ve ever seen. Are we done with dunes now? Maybe.
The park entrance station was our first chance to use Aaron Henry’s fourth grader park pass! We have made the most of the “Every Kid Outdoors” government program. Aaron Henry saved us about $100 on this trip.
The dunes are located about a half mile from the parking lot, across a wide expanse of flat sand. In the spring and early summer, Medano Creek flows across this area, but by the time we visited in September, the creek bed was dry. We trudged out toward the dunes, carrying our backpacks and baby Claire. We left our coats in the car since it was already warming up. It felt like a long walk, but we eventually began to climb and reached the first ridge. Claire and I perched on the first ridge and watched as the bigger kids raced around the dunes and took turns sledding to the bottom. Claire loved the feeling of the sand on her fingers. After a while I switched with Greg and climbed a few dunes myself. Zoe and Henry were the most adventurous and wanted to go further and further out. I got a little worried once or twice when they disappeared over a ridge!
When the children were tired of playing, we walked back to the car and headed out on the Medano Primitive Road. This is a rough 22-mile road that winds around the park and crosses Medano Creek nine times. It requires a high clearance 4WD vehicle and sometimes reduced tire pressure to handle the deep sand. We drove out to Castle Creek for a picnic lunch with a view of High Dune. Greg climbed about halfway up the dune before he slid to the bottom.
We stopped in the visitor center to get junior ranger books, pick out postcards, watch the park film, and see their exhibits about animal life in the dunes. Zoe was especially interested in the kangaroo rat, which is kind of an oversized mouse.
The dunes have a serenity about them, a feeling that you could sit and watch them for hours. We had the most perfect day for our visit – no wind, dust, or bugs, just warm September sun and a stillness that made our voices carry across the dunes. It’s incredible to find so much sand in the middle of our country! This is not the easiest national park to access, but if you can, it’s definitely worth a visit!
=)
