I recently took a trip with three awesome women around the mountains of Colorado. Seeking a socially distant way to have an adventure, we ended up at three National Parks and some wonderful hikes. This post is going to be dedicated to our first stop: Great Sand Dunes National Park.

The Dunes

Three and a half hours away from Denver, this park is far off the beaten path. Getting there was easy, though, with quality roads and directions.

We camped just across from the park at the Sand Dunes Oasis. There they rent sand boards and have food available. Pro tip – you really don’t need a sand board, and the lines are nasty long so I’d just stick with a hike. I’ll go into more detail on that later. If you’re there for the night, enjoy the stars in the dark skies and hopefully you catch an epic sunset like we got:

High Dune

There are two large dunes you can hike – Star and High Dune. The difference in height between the two is only fifty feet, but Star Dune takes three to four times as long. We opted for the 2 hour round trip of the 700ft tall High Dune.

Now, sand dune hiking is odd. Each step up has you sliding a little bit down as well, so it is effort to hike these things. There’s also no set path, as you can see by the not-entirely-helpful trail map we passed:

It’s a total free-for-all on your path, we hiked a mixture of ridge lines and steep walls of sand to get us to the top. Our breathing was heavy, but the rest on top with our summit drinks made it worth it! In the cooler morning, we rocked bare feet. But once the sand gets hot, a pair of socks is all the footwear you need to keep the scald off your toes.

There’s just no communicating the sheer scale of these dunes. Ninety percent of the sand of the park is within a massive stretch of flat, rocky sand at the beginning. Followed by massive, rolling hills of sand that take forever to scale, and seconds to sprint/fall down. This is why I don’t recommend sand boards – because of the walk back up the steep sand. I also recommend you get into the park as early as possible. As we wrapped up our hike around 10 AM, the sand was already almost too hot to stand on. Not to mention, there was already a massive line to get into the park at the Entrance Station.

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We all really enjoyed our time on the Dunes, and especially enjoyed the hammock naps back at our campground right afterward.

Nearby Hiking

Although Great Sand Dunes National Park looks to be in the middle of nowhere, there’s a number of non-sandy hikes either in the park or nearby. We opted to try one that’s only ten miles from the park. However, five of those ten miles may take up to 45 minutes to drive. It is among the rockiest, bumpiest roads I’ve driven, but the hike at the top is easy and worth it.

Zapata Falls

Just a half mile from the trail head, the 30ft waterfall is hidden from the dirt trail. If you want to see this multi-step waterfall in all its majesty, you’re going to need to walk through the creek. In September when we were there, the water was quite low but quite cold. I’ve been there in May as well and don’t remember high water in the creek, but the waterfall was half frozen still from winter. It really is an impressive site; loud and so close!

I hope you get a chance to explore this fascinating National Park. It makes for a great weekend trip and you feel like you’re in another world!