This trip was one I did while visiting Colorado for work. It was also a park I did with my Grammy! She is featured in a few of these pictures. The trip was in October 2015! We decided to drive down to this national park because it wasn’t too far and I had heard some cool stuff about it! The idea of massive sand dunes in the mountains was interesting enough to entice us both. Here are some random pictures I took on the drive there and back. I LOVE Colorado. I cannot get enough of the Rockies. I love taking pictures of them.
So when we arrived the first day it was later in the evening. We stayed at a hotel near the park but we stopped by to get a look at the sand dunes! It was cloudy when we got there, but I still snapped a few pictures. Apparently there is little to no river this time of year apparently so we were able to walk right across the sand.
We came back to the hotel and it finally started clearing up I got some cool pictures with the mountain and the sunset was stunning! And we had this view from our back porch!
The next day we rented a sand sled and headed over to the dunes, determined to explore a bit more!
I wanted to attempt to summit so Gram waited for me back at the beginning. If you’ve never been, you should know these dunes top out at about 750 feet tall! They look small and close until you try to walk to them, then it takes forever!
Here is a picture I took when I managed to get about half way up and realized I didn’t have any way to get forward…clearly I did not follow the path. There is Gram – she is the tiny spec!
I also learned that my fear of heights is pretty substantial, especially on these dunes where you’re walking along the rim and the drop on either side is steep! No trees or shrubs to give me a sense of security here! I decided to head back and leave the summit of these dunes for another visit. Gram and I wanted to give the sled a try! Unfortunately I didn’t realize you had to regularly wax this sled to work. I left the wax in the car! So it didn’t slide as well as we may have liked. But it was still hilarious! Here is Gram taking her turn sliding down a massive dune! She was more fearless than I was – put me to shame!
Before heading out that day we heard about a hike nearby to some falls. We decided to go check it out! It was well worth the short climb! Here are some pics from the trail.
Since I didn’t make it to the top of the dunes, this park is definitely on the list for a second trip! I’ll even bring extra wax so I can give that sled another try. Great time!
Kelsey's Climb to 59 (+4) 