Agile Trekker: Climbing Dunes, Great Sand Dunes National Park

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
5/20/2024	2.3 miles	1 hour 58 minutes	476'	1.3 mph	346.5 miles

Parking:

Parking lot near Dunes Picnic Area
Note this is a national park, so a fee or pass is required: Fees & Passes - Great Sand Dunes National Park & Preserve (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Map:

Directions: From the parking lot, cross the creek. Then choose your route up the dunes.

I managed to sleep well last night, even though it got down to 36 degrees. The campground we stayed at was quiet, even though there were a fair number of people there and not much separation between sites.

We got an early start today for hiking up the dunes. That meant crossing Medano Creek was very chilly. On the other side of the creek, back on with the sneakers. We crossed the flat sand and then started climbing the dunes. I guess there are some "routes", but we just chose our own route. We decided not to rent sleds for sledding on the dunes. I'm too worried about injuring myself. Sometimes the sand is soft and sometimes firm. Some of the climbing was very, very hard. I'd climb a few steps and then need to rest. The sand in some points was completely covering my shoes, so just extra weight to try to lift your feet up. On one hill, I just kept sliding backwards as I was trying to climb. Also, when climbing, it looks like you'll summit a dune and then have a sweeping view down of everything. They were more like false summits. There are just more dunes to climb on the other side, lol. Ack. Some of the dune sides were very steep - not climbable. This was a very good cardio workout, though cardio has been hard for me. I'm still trying to improve my fitness after not hiking much last year. But this was an amazing experience. The dunes are vast. We only hiked a little bit of them, as it was exhausting. On the way down we saw people sledding on the shorter dunes. We went back to the visitor center and had second breakfast out their back door, enjoying the view.