This week Scruffy and I headed to Great Sand Dunes National
Park for our days off. We got here
yesterday around 11 and joined the folks circling the campgrounds looking for
empty spaces (wishful thinking) or someone who was packing up. I snagged a good
spot and with the current owners permission left my tag on the post and headed
off to park my rig in a parking lot with a nice view. We opened the windows to
catch the breeze and ate lunch while waiting for the 1 pm checkout. We made it back to our site just in time to
unhitch in the pouring rain.
After the rain cleared, I decided to hike to Zapata Falls,
which was labeled – point of interest - on
the road to the National Park. Four miles on the very rough road, was enough to
cause Scruffy to roll his eyes and say,“what
were you thinking.” Now, I am not sure whether it was the falls, or the
road that was the POI. We did have a
nice hike, and the creek was beautiful, but the falls did not appear to be
falling. A little farther up the road we found a BLM campground with
great views.
This morning we both watched out the back window as some
deer browsed in our fire pit. They went through the campground cleaning up.
When they left so did we, heading out for our morning walk. We followed the
trail down from the campground through an area of old dunes that are now
stabilized by vegetation to the Medano creek that runs down from the Sangre de
Cristo mountains to the north and east and around the dunes to the Southwest.
 |
| Scruffy's favorite part of hike is finding bushes to mark. |
The
creek carries sand and deposits it in the southwest where the wind picks it up
and blows it onto the dunes.
I planned to hike in the dunes after breakfast before the sand heated up but the raw natural beauty called out to be left
alone. The magnificence was inspiring and looking was enough.
