GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK (CO)

SATURDAY - We've got a 169-mile travel day ahead of us today.

It will begin with us getting back over to Interstate-25 and then heading south for 92-miles until we reach the US-160 exit in Walsenburg, CO.

On US-160 we'll be looking at 60-ish miles of westward travel that includes crossing up and over the Rocky Mountains through the North La Veta Pass (9,413' elevation).

Once on the other side of the mountains, we'll be traveling on a huge flat plateau for the final 20-miles of the route on CO-150. By the time we get settled into our campsite we should be at around 8300' in elevation.

TRAVEL DAY PHOTOS

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The 2 mountains in the clouds are East﹠West Spanish Peak (12,688'﹠13,631' respectively). There are no taller mountains east of these two in the United States.
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We've now left the Interstate behind and are traveling west towards the mountain pass.
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I'm not sure what happened to the trees around here, insects or fire?
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We are nearly at the summit! Notice how there are two lanes for passing slower vehicles
on our side of the road while we're still climbing?
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More dead trees, but look how colorful the underbrush is at this high elevation.
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This high plateau or the other side is at about 8500' elevation.
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The clouds forming over the road in front of us look very odd.
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We are in the final 20-miles now heading north on CO-150.
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Our first look at the Great Sand Dunes. I didn't know there were mountains behind them.
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As we got closer the road began to curve to the right.
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The mountains don't look nearly as tall as they did before.
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Still curving to the right, but we should be at the campgound soon.
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This is supposed to be a "pull-in" site for 30' or less motorhomes.
We cheated by going a short distance around the 1-way loop backwards and backed in.
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This site doesn't have a very nice view out the back.
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It has an OK view out the front...
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...but this side view is to die for!
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We've got an unobstruted view, top to bottom, of the Great Sand Dunes.

SUNDAY - This morning we are going over to the Visitor Center here at Great Sand Dunes National Park and officially check in to our 40th National Park.

Another milestone is that with this visit we have now visited every single National Park in the Lower 48 states located east of Los Angeles, CA. There are only 51 National Parks in the Lower 48 states, which means we have just 11 more to visit and those are all located in California, Oregon and Washington state.

Guess where our travel plans will be taking us next year?

On our way back from the Visitior Center we stopped to snap a quick photo of THE POD sitting out in the open on our campsite, collecting all that FREE solar energy, awaiting our return.

From the vantage point of our campsite Tricia took all of the photos in this slideshow.

GREAT SAND DUNES

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The picnic area parking lot is as close as you can get to the dunes with a car.
From there it is still a 1/2-mile hike on the flat sand before you even get to "the dunes".
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When you finally get to the dunes the sand becomes deeper and harder to walk through.
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Most people stay on that first level, but others just have to get to the top.
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The higher you get on the dunes, the fewer people you'll see ahead of you.
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After about an hour of hiking a few people do make it to the top.
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But this is only the first ridge!
The highest dunes are hidden behind what you can see from the ground.

MONDAY - Today was one of those on-again off-again rainy days.

Just after lunch I felt a case of cabin fever coming on and decided to drive about 10-miles outside of the park and check out a BLM campground up in the mountainside.

Tricia wasn't suffering from the same cabin fever I had so she elected to stay behind in THE POD and knit.

So just after lunch I jumped into ROVER and headed out. Right in front of the Visitor Center there was a person with a huge backpack and hiking sticks looking for a ride. Since the passenger seat was empty I stopped and asked if getting 8-miles up the road would help and his answer was every little bit helps.

I noticed he had a German accent and asked if he was visiting the United States. He told me he arrived at the end of July and has been backpacking all over Colorado. I noticed after he climbed into ROVER with his backpack on his lap that he wasn't a young man afterall. He told me he's retired and 51-years young!

Last week he hiked to above 14,000' on one of the nearby mountains and spent 2-nights before the weather chased him back down to survivable elevations. He also carried his pack to the top of one of the Great Sand Dunes yesterday.

After I "got to know him better" I offered to drive him an additional 10-miles out to the highway so he would have a much better chance of catching his next ride. He told me he would say a prayer for me if I were a religious man, otherwise he would wish me all the good karma he could (his words not mine).

I told him I always strive to receive good karma.

Tomorrow morning we leave Colorado behind and enter into New Mexico. We've already crossed that border before, earlier this year towards the end of June.

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