MichelleI am feeling very lazy about writing this post. Partially because there weren’t a lot of interesting things to talk about until I got to Great Sand Dunes National Park. I’ll make a few comments on what I did, but mostly it will be pictures.
After leaving Salida, CO I headed to Canon City (pronounced Canyon), CO. Downtown had lots of historic buildings and also a park next to the Arkansas River, much like in Salida. I hiked the Tunnel Drive Trail which is high above the river and farmland. The trail is an old railroad grade with 3 tunnels to walk through. This was a super fun trail but even at 10am it was HOT! The only shade is in the tunnels or behind stands of rocks. I only spent a few days in this area, but the sunsets were very pretty.
Next up was Pueblo, CO. I specifically went there to have upgraded brakes installed on my Lectric Ebike. I read that Pueblo also has a riverwalk downtown, so I spent part of one day doing that. The walk was beautiful but there was nothing much around it to see even though they say there is shopping and dining. I was staying at Pueblo Lake State Park and after getting the brakes installed on the bike, I took a long ride on some paved trails that go for miles (30 I think).
Now on to Great Sand Dunes National Park, which is near Alamosa, CO. Completely different from where I’d been, this area is a very wide valley of either farmland or flat wild areas covered in sand and low desert bushes. The bushes resemble Sagebrush but there was little of that here. Being late summer, there were prairie sunflowers blooming all along the sides of the roads. Many of the desert bushes were also blooming yellow which made the countryside very cheery with all the yellow flowers. I stayed at San Juan Lake Wildlife Reserve. This was a great place to stay as the campground used to be a State Park. There were lots of bunnies and small ground squirrels running around. One really incredible bit of wildlife is the Hummingbird Moth. You’ll need to look this up. I couldn’t get a picture of one because they are constantly moving. Hummingbird Moths are a little smaller than a hummingbird but they fly the same way. Up, down, sideways, hovering. Very quick. They have a long ‘probiscus’ they use to suck nectar out of flowers. I found them incredibly fascinating as they darted from one flower to another. Fascinating and just a little creepy!
The best part of this area are the sand dunes. These sand dunes are the tallest in North America (700+ feet) and stretch quite a long way as well. The first day I visited the park was the day after a huge rainstorm. The sand was a dark color because it was wet and the mountains behind had received their first snow of the season. It was a gorgeous site!
The second time I visited the park, I went later in the afternoon so I could get some pictures with deep shadows and colors. It feels like a long way to walk from the parking area to the dunes, but I expect that’s because you’re walking in deep sand. I started walking up a ridge up to the top of a dune, then switched to another one. It got steeper as I continued and, finally, I had to sit and catch my breath. That is where I stayed until the sun went down. It was fun to watch people ride sand sleds or sandboards down the dunes. Some of them are pretty steep and you can really pick up some speed! It was a great afternoon watching everyone have fun. If I’d had another day, I would like to have tried to hike further up to see over the opposite side. That will have to wait for another time. I would highly recommend going to this park if you’re in the area. I also visited the town of Alamosa, CO which was a nice place. They were having an art festival with art pieces placed along the sidewalks. I’ll include a few pics of these.
One amazing event was an incredible thunder, lightning, and rainstorm that blew through. Being such a wide valley, I could watch the storm approach from the south shooting lightning bolts left and right, and straight across the sky. Multiple strikes at one time splayed across the horizon… tiny, crooked fingers going every which way. It was a little scary once the storm was directly overhead. The rain came down in a deluge with some hail mixed in. Many people are used to storms like this, but we rarely get such wild storms in the Northwest.
Enjoy the pictures!
