Great Sand Dunes Party!?!

Where: Great Sand Dunes National Park

When: June 11-13, 2010

Who: Myself, Caitlin, meeting up with Trent, Bethany, Duncan, Cara, Dan, plus the dogs.

So this recap is a little late considering it is now September and this happened back in June. But I couldn’t leave out this trip from the records because it was ridiculous. Let’s start at the beginning and all the photos will be in chronological order just for sake of ease.

We all convened in the Pinyon Flats Campground Friday night on a relatively quick drive from Denver. It is Bethany’s B-day weekend but we were able to reserve only one campground that can’t have more then two tents and two cars; we were not about to let “the man” hold us down so we set-up camp under a beautiful clear night sky with 4 tents and 4 cars (as we were traveling from all over the state). Spirits were high that night we were excited for a awesome weekend on the dunes filled with glorious adventures and abundant amounts of fun. Let’s just say everything changed quickly…

About 2-3am was when we encountered our first challenge: insane winds!!!!  We are in the sand dunes so that means where there is wind there is also flying sand; this is not just a little sand, but epic amounts of fine grain sand getting into every little crevice that it could find. Sleep quickly became a luxury as the wind and sand combo was blowing up tiny particles of sand underneath the rain fly and dropping down on us in the tent; it was literally raining sand.

Morning dawns…kinda. It’s cloudy, it’s windy, it’s kinda raining, we are sleep-deprived and it is  really early so we do what any logical human being would do in that situation: drink. Out comes the Jack Daniels which we enjoyed alongside numerous fresh cherries and other breakfast goodies; let’s just say each one of us was focused on this activity with Olympic-like intensity.

Several hours later we decide it is time to go do something (not before we had a run-in with vigilante park ranger about the tent situation even though our tents combined took up less space then the tent cities some of the other campers had). We head over the the incredibly busy visitors center (cold, wind and tourons do not mix), which was fun because well, we were  intoxicated. Then it was off to suffer on the dunes:

Hiking in wasn’t too bad, a little chilly and a lot windy:

Trent Catching some Air:

The others turned around because they have the dogs and the sand was really messing with their eyes, however Duncan, Caitlin and I keep venturing further. Bad idea as the wind was to out backs but hiking out the wind was in our faces . Right before we decide to turn around:

Luckily the group found an awesome out of wind bank along the river. Some of us caught up on the sleep we were missing:

The low-hanging cloud on the right is part of a small fire that was happening just miles from the campground:

After catching up on sleep (and starting our afternoon hang-over from all the morning drinking) we thought we would get out of the wind and sand and headed to Zapata Falls. Nice little short walk to some freezing cold water (in the deep canyon part ice was still lining the walls). Duncan trying not to fall:

The evening gave us some nice light and you can see how crazy the wind was:

Next morning we awoke to beautiful skies, no wind, and perfect temps. It was such a radical change it was hard to realize that it was the same place. Trent, Bethany, Caitlin and I all found a quite area away from other people and played in the creek, tried some sand-boarding, and just enjoyed the sun:

On the way out Caitlin and I took the scenic route up the San Luis valley eventually hitting up 285 for the ride home. While we were dealing with wind and a little rain in the sand dunes, the I-70 corridor was hit with a very late season snow-storm (most of the snow had already melted off of the peaks and we were sure glad we weren’t camping in that):

Now I can finally say I have been to the sand-dunes (even if I am still scraping sand out of my eyes 3 mos later)!