Great Sand Dunes National Park

On our way home from Pagosa Springs, we drove a little bit out of the way to the north in order to visit Great Sand Dunes National Park.

As we began to see the dunes from a distance, they just looked like large sandpiles at the base of the mountains, but the closer we got, the bigger they looked.

Now we were close enough to get a better idea of the size of the dunes!

We wore shoes and socks to protect our feet from the hot sand.

We did not go all the way to the top since we were on a fairly tight time schedule. It was a long way to the top!

It was a little scary watching children and teenagers turning handsprings down the steep sides of the dunes. One girl laid very still for a couple of minutes after doing this, and all of us who was watching her were getting concerned that she was hurt. About the time people began yelling to her, she got up and walked back up the slope to do it again.

We were only at the National Park for two hours or so, and on our way out of the park we stopped to take some last looks at the dunes and the surrounding scenery.

I used my zoom lens to take some close-up shots of the distant mountains and dunes, and also to take a few pictures of nearby horses as they were grazing.