Hikes:
High Dune Trail / 3 Miles / Out & Back / 629 ft Elevation Gain
It was 3 miles to the top, and 3 miles back down. Being from Florida, I have had a lot of experience with the workout that is walking on sand. Great Sand Dunes are no different. Be prepared for a workout as you gain 629 feet over the course of 3 miles up, and 3 miles down.
Me on Top of High Dune 
View From the Bottom
National Parks, huh?
The Trip In
The purpose of the 8 month cross-country trip was and forever would be to see more of the United States. But neither Jacqueline or I thought that mission would eventually find direction through the National Park system. But if it was visiting Canyonlands national park that made us expressly vocalize the plan to see as many national parks as we could. It was the beauty of Great Sand Dunes that put National Parks in our trip subconscious.
The visit to Great Sand Dunes was the first leg of a trip down the east side of the Rockies on I-25 from Denver to Great Sand Dunes and then back up through the Rockies starting up Colorado Highway 69 stopping at Mount Princeton Hot Springs, eating at The Trailhead in Buena Vista and continuing back up to Denver.
Arriving at the Park
Driving up to Great Sand Dune National Park I was taken aback by the vastness of the area. The vast plains running up into the enormous sand dunes, surrounded in this semi-circle bowl by massive, dark, and snow-covered mountains with the tops shrouded by clouds.
Trying to capture the scene on an iPhone out of the car window did no-justice to what was a foreboding, imposing, awesome scene.
Origin
I remember reading somewhere a theory that the sand is a remnant of giant ants that have dug huge tunnels and the sand is the waste dug out of the tunnels. The more realistic theory is that eons ago the area used to be a large lake. However, due to various ecological factors the lake dried up leaving a large bed of sand. Then, the sand caught between wind blowing across the basin into the mountains, and the wind coming down from the mountains gathered the sand into the dunes we see today.
The Hike
The sun was getting lower in the sky as we started our hike across the base of the dune. The hike winds and meanders slowly up the dunes to the peak of the largest dune in the sea.
In the summer there is a stream at the base of the dunes that is apparently refreshing to play in. On February 13th there was no stream, but flurries of snow. The hike works up across increasingly large sand dunes. The hike ends at the 750 foot tallest sand dune in North America. At the top there is a grand sweeping vista from the plains in the southwest and the snow covered mountains in the northeast.
Conclusion
We missed out on the sand boarding this time around (riding down the sand dunes on a snowboard-like board.) But, the experience really highlighted the beauty and magnitude of National Parks to Jacqueline and I. While the trip had not transitioned to a focus on national parks yet, Great Sand Dunes definitely inspired us to put other National Parks on the must see list.
