We took some friends to see the Great Sand Dunes. The dunes are only about 60 miles from La Veta so a lot of people stay in our park and then make a day of visiting them. There is an outfitter in La Veta that rents sand boards and sleds to use on the dunes. They trudge up the dunes as far as they can -- its a hard walk because your feet sink in the sand- and then they ski or sled down. The other popular activity is to enjoy the water that runs at the bottom of the dunes. This late in summer it is only a trickle but earlier it was running well enough to raft. As the water dries up people use it like a beach.
The dunes are as much as 750 feet high which makes them the tallest in North America. Mid-day in the summer the sand can reach 150 degrees. This is high country with elevations from 8000 to 13000 feet. High winds and lightening are real dangers here. The winds tend to come from three or four directions which created and maintains the dunes. We didn't think the dunes would be much to see since we have seen White Sands and the Imperial Sand dunes but these are much more impressive.
No comments:
Post a Comment