Sand Dunes - Colorado part II

Great Sand Dunes National Park

We visited Great Sand Dunes National Park while visiting Colorado. The park is about an hour from where my dad is building his cabin. We went not quite knowing what to expect. It was really neat! The sand dunes are huge and can be easily climbed but to get to them you have to cross a creek. I say creek but it was about 50 yards wide and shallow enough for small children to wade through. There was no bridge to cross it. If you wanted to climb the dunes you were expected to take off your shoes and wade over it. Clearly we were one of the few non Colorado folk at the park. It seemed to be mostly locals who had visited many times over. They carried sleds and snowboards to "ski" down the dunes and were properly dressed to wade in the water and yet not catch hypothermia (in other words they were not wearing cotton like us). The place was very busy, it just doesn't look that way in the pictures because we stayed away from the crowd. The sand dunes are at the far north east corner of the San Luis Valley. The valley is the driest in the nation for that altitude and it looked that way. The winds over the years had picked up the sand in the valley and deposited them at the foot of the mountains. Leaving the Great Sand Dunes.

I took this picture at the visitor center. It shows my kids personalities to a T. Nora is trying to obey me by smiling at the camera while struggling with the sun in her eyes. Tim is being the bully as usual and Nathaniel is about to start complaining about it.

Chad's expression when he first stepped into the water. The water is basically melted snow and ice cold.

My family is in the bottom right of the picture. I wish you could see all the people climbing the dunes. There are a hundred or more.

We let the kids play in the water. It was the ultimate sand and water combo. They were freezing at the end. Nathaniel is shirtless not cause it's warm but because I wanted dry clothes to put back on him when he was done.

A very cool place to visit, we will defiantly be going back!