Thirty square miles of sand, more Saharan than Coloradan, appears as though it has been dumped into a nook of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The tallest dune rises 750 feet.
With 250,000 annual visitors, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is not the most popular national park in Colorado. Not by a long shot. But flip a quarter and you may very well catch a glimpse. The park was iconic enough to be selected to represent Colorado on a new quarter, released by the U.S. Mint in 2014.
Go in September or October. There aren’t lines, or really many people, to slow you down that time of year. At night, the stars seem infinite — as infinite as the grains of sand that formed the dunes.
The Great Sand Dunes, according to geologists, were created after a huge lake that covered much of the San Luis Valley receded. Predominant southwesterly winds then blew the leftover sand toward a curve in the towering Sangre de Cristo mountains, where it piled up. Opposing winds, coming down from the mountains during storms, cause the dunes to grow vertically. The unique ecosystem has been protected as a national monument since 1932, expanding in size and becoming a national park in 2004.
In the dune field, there are no marked paths or trails — anywhere you want to climb is fair game, as long as you stay off what little vegetation clings to life there. It seems like a crazy concept if the dunes you grew up nearest were of the delicate, “don’t touch” coastal variety.
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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