Great Sand Dunes National Park

Awaking in Pagosa Springs on Sunday at the Pinewood Inn, I knew it was time to start heading home. But before fully committing myself to this goal, I had one more destination in mind: Great Sand Dunes National Park near Alamosa, Colorado. Alamosa is two hours from Pagosa Springs and the dunes are another thirty minutes east on Highway 160. I arrived at the park late in the morning and headed straight for the dunes.

The dunes cover thirty square miles, reaching 750 feet at their highest point. They are the largest sand dunes in North America--Saharan in scale--but still dwarfed by the surrounding mountains. The three mile roundtrip hike to the highest point of the Great Sand Dunes was one of the more strenuous I undertook on this trip. There's no trail, the dunes are hot and dry, and it's hard to establish your footing. I lost half the distance of every step I took because my feet sunk backwards in the sloping, shifting sand.

After about forty minutes of trudging, I finally (and proudly) reached the summit of the dunes, marked by a stick in the sand, and rested there for a few moments as I took in the view. The hike down was much easier. I just started running and let my momentum carry me. Even though I didn't, if I were to have fallen the soft sand would have cushioned my fall. It took about a quarter of the time to reach the bottom as it took to climb to the top. When I got to the parking lot, my hiking shoes were full of sand.

Mission of hiking to the top of the Great Sand Dunes accomplished, I pointed my wheels towards Wisconsin. But about thirty miles along the highway, traffic was stopped. I learned from a police officer there had been a terrible accident involving seven vehicles ahead on the highway and from another blocked traveler that it could be hours before the road was reopened. Not one willing to wait without any sense of when the road would be cleared, I backtracked to Alamosa and took a more northern route through Colorado.

My goal for the evening was to make it as far as Kansas. I came within forty miles of succeeding. After witnessing a stunning double rainbow in Eastern Colorado, however, I got caught in a nasty thunderstorm and decided to stop for the night in Eads (pronounced like "deeds" without the "d"). The next day I drove over a thousand miles through Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin making it home to Appleton by just before 1 a.m. Tuesday morning. My wonderful, winding road trip had come to an end.