Great Sand Dunes NP
Fri Jun 29 2018
A look at the mountains from Independence Pass
We left the Difficult Campground and headed toward the Great Sand Dunes National Park. Our route would take us over Independence Pass and down through Buena Vista.
The road up to Independence Pass was a little sketchy, especially the one lane sections. Luckily, we went early and didn't have to deal with a lot of traffic.
The views at the top of the pass were amazing. We got out and walked around a bit. There were some hiking trails visible to tackle hiking the nearby mountains. From there we headed down to Buena Vista where we stopped at Brown Dog Coffee for a cup.
From Buena Vista it was a couple of hours of driving to get to the dunes, with a brief stop in Poncha Springs to check out the teardrop trailers.
Once at the Dunes, we stopped at the visitor center and then hiked up the dunes. The weather was good and it was not as hot as expected. The views were hazy due to the newly started and nearby Spring Fire which had closed traffic to the east.
Climbing on the dunes was pretty tiring. We all took turns running down the dunes after we had hiked up which was surprisingly easy considering the steep slopes.
When we got back to the truck we all emptied our boots of sand. Nate was the winner with a ridiculous amount of sand in his boots, however we all had a lot.
After the dunes, we headed up to Zapata Falls. We stopped at the campground and made lunch. Talked to the campground host, an interesting Texas guy, and then walked up to the falls. The falls were fairly crowded and there is only room for a couple people at the viewpoint so there was a bit of a line but the falls were nice.
Next we went to our KOA campground and then to Alamosa for dinner.
Hiking up the dunes.