Hey hey USA - 5th November - Great Sand Dunes National Park

 


We were driving north through Colorado towards Denver to catch our plane back to the UK and had stopped in Alamosa the previous night so that we could visit Great Sand Dunes the following day. 
It was a great decision. These sand dunes, although they lack the whiteness of the dunes in New Mexico, make up for it in spades by the relative wildness of their situation. The park is not so ordered and neat as the White Dunes but feels a lot more natural.
As we drove through the San Luis Valley towards the dunes they gradually emerged from the base of the mountains. These are the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a southerly extension of the Rockies which run down along the eastern side of the Rio Grande rift all the way to to Santa Fé in New Mexico. The dunes are the highest in North America and are nowhere near the sea. The Saint Luis Valley once held a number of lakes which receded around 440,000 years ago, leaving behind large sand sheets. The winds in the valley blew the sand into a cleft in the mountains forming the dunes. Now the wind is still dominantly into the mountains but during storms the wind blows the sand back towards the valley, the net result being that the dunes become higher and the tallest now stands at 226 metres. Mountain streams capture sand from the mountain side of the dune field and bring it down to the valley floor from where it is blown back against the mountains again. The largest dunes are static but the smaller ones are constantly changing shape and moving.
We parked up and walked towards the dunes. We were quite early and there was hardly anyone about but it got busier as time went on. We saw the remains of a stream which had disappeared in the autumn drought but ice crystals of water were on the stream bed. It was very cold but we soon heated up as we started to climb the dunes. This was not easy as the sand shifts under your feet as you move and it is difficult to make headway. Also we were still rather Covid compromised. We did make it to a good elevation although overtaken by most of the other arrivals. It is an adventure playground and some people were endeavouring to snow board down the slopes. 
We eventually made our way to where the dunes were quieter and the clouds cleared and the sun came out.




The dried up stream bed



















When we had got back to the car park we drove along a track at the edge of the dunes to get a new perspective.


And, even driving away we couldn't resist stopping the car to look back at the spectacle.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 11th June - we go ashore in Village Bay

Image
  We had had a good night anchored just off shore in Village Bay on Hirta,  St Kilda's main island. When we woke up the sky was clear and the visibility good and I felt very proud of being able to make a panorama of the shore from the slightly rolling boat. There was one other small yacht tied up in the bay. The other yacht in the bay with Stac Levenish in the background In the panorama, if you enlarge the picture, you can see the bay, the sandy shore, with the military buildings at the front of the shoreline, the old village spread out some way behind and then a jumble of walls and stones going off into the distance. However by the time we had had breakfast and got out in the dinghy to go on land a fog had descended limiting our views of the hills. It seemed good though to explore in the conditions that must prevail on St Kilda most of the time! As we climbed the jetty I noticed some kelp in the water that looked just like a fish skeleton. St Kilda had been inhabited by man since
Read more

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 8th June - we go aboard in Oban

Image
  We have never booked a holiday a year in advance before so the anticipation leading up to our sea trip on yacht Zuza was immense. We had arrived in Oban the night before and at the appointed hour (2.00pm) we wheeled all our luggage, far too much with cameras, a laptop, walking boots and Alan's, new to him, yachting trousers and jacket recently purchased from eBay, down the jetty and onto the boat. The good ship Zuza is a Bermudan cutter rig ship built in 1998 as an expedition boat for the Royal Geographical Society. She is 22m long and weighs a  goodly 42 tonnes. When we were on her there were 3 crew and 8 guests who occupied two twin bunk cabins and two double en suite ones. I was too late to get a double cabin so we were in a twin. With a saloon and a covered wheel house she was perfect to take us all the way to St Kilda and then around some of the Hebrides. Bear with me while I introduce everyone. Neil was the Captain, Erin the First Mate, and Grosia the chef. Neil was very la
Read more

A weekend in the Dingle, a damp drive and exciting lichen

Image
We woke to a drizzle the day after our 'Tom Crean experience'. We had not enlisted for the Tom Crean 19 mile endurance walk, and luckily that was sold out anyway, and given the weather would not have been pleasant by any yardstick. Instead we did what any old codger would do under the circumstances and go for a drive. The Slea Head Drive to be more precise and part of what the Dingle tourist board call the 'Wild Atlantic Way'. Wet and wild that particular Saturday. It is manners to drive clockwise around this circular route as the road is very narrow and cars coming the other way, as a couple did, cause all the traffic to snarl up. We started in Dingle where we stopped briefly by the harbour, before continuing until we shortly came to a museum. It was a private, commercial sort of venture, run by an American and called the Celtic and Prehistory Museum. And it was actually very interesting, containing some animal skeletons and stone axes and other such artefacts. Th
Read more

Ten days on Zuza to St Kilda - 10th June - Lochmaddy to St Kilda

Image
It was going to be another long day's sail to get to St Kilda. Neil, probably not wanting to get us up too early again, made a 7.00am start. As we're going to be crossing more open water and as I am not a particularly good sailor I did take drugs that morning. They didn't quite work but staved off the worst. The only problem was the side effect of sleepiness and, while we were motoring along, various bodies could be seen lying on the deck snoozing in the sunshine. We had a stowaway on board who stayed with us for a while. Caroline and Grosia attempted to feed him, which he appreciated. We turned west into the Sound of Harris which was an almost mystical channel in the soft light. We saw more dolphin which I ignominiously failed to photograph. There were some cormorants on a rocky outcrop and a strange buoy which was being swept by the current. Once we were clear of the channel and heading west I was excited to see that the chart told me we were in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Read more