[ALAMOSA, COLORADO] — Here’s an overview of the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. A little bit of the Sahara in Colorado. What to do Great Sand Dunes National Park.

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The U.S. has lots of natural wonders, but few compare to the incredible Great Sand Dunes in southern Colorado. Here in a sparsely populated agricultural valley, flat as a pancake with mountain ranges ringing on all sides, these dunes are one of the coolest natural wonders in the United States.

It was thankfully quarried away as a national monument in the 1930s by Herbert Hoover and later turned into a national park. Despite its remote location in the middle of nowhere, over 400,000 people make their way here each year to ooooh and ahhhh at this amazing place.

You should go here, too.

If you’re coming down from Denver or the ski resorts of Summit County, you drive through the wonderfully flat open basin of South Park, a glorious expanse of land that inspired the cartoon show. If you love big open spaces, then you’ll love this drive.

You arrive at lovely town of Salida, a great breakfast or lunch stop and a base for whitewater rafting, then cross the low mountain pass and enter the even bigger and flatter San Luis Valley. You drive for miles, mountains ringing both sides.

Just one big straight highway down the center of the valley floor. And then you see the dunes in the distance.

The Great Sand Dunes–One of the Coolest Natural Wonders in the United States

Why here? Here’s how these great dunes were formed over thousands of years in the remote San Luis Valley.

First, a little about Colorado. Many people think that Colorado is all mountains, but what most don’t realize is that the eastern half of the state is flat as a pancake. Great upheavals of mountains and crashing tectonic plates thrusted up to form the Rocky Mountains, heaving and subsiding over millions of years, creating vast waves of mountain ranges, capturing great valleys in-between. Some created by river erosion, others from ancient lakes caught out in the open, then dried off over hundreds of thousands of years.

The vast San Luis Valley in the lowest central part of the state is a high arid desert. A big thumbprint in the earth, the size of Connecticut. It’s home to a lot of agriculture in this vertical state. Most ranches and farms fed by underground aquifers.

It’s hard to determine scale in sand dunes, being deep in the sand with no landmarks always distorts distance, whether in the Sahara or Colorado. You think you’re right near the top of the dunes, but after cresting a ridge you realize there are rows of higher ones in the distance.

The Medano Creek is a crazy phenomenon. Because it’s mostly sand, water sinks and deceptively flows just under the surface, like a slurry, which can make walking across it a challenge certain times of year, particularly in late Spring. And sometime the underwater water creates undulating waves, at 20 second intervals.

The National Park’s website has great info and tips on the best time of the year and often current weather conditions. So make you check it out before driving all the way down here.

I’ve spent nights in the Sahara and the Wahiba Sands of Oman, which were amazing. But this amazing sea of dunes is right here in Colorado.

Because this is a high arid dessert with little to no humidity, it stays relatively cool during the summer and a dry cold in winter, but heats up when the sun comes out, so you can visit during winter months. But plunges below freezing at night once the sun goes down.

There’s very little rain each year, but it can snow. But the park does warn people that in summer, the heat-absorbing sands can get up to 150 degrees, so hot days are not the most fun. 🍳

So my point is thus: check the weather before you go. You could drive all that way and not be able to climb the dunes.

These dunes cover 30 square miles and rise 75 stories from the flat valley floor below. At over 8,000 feet above sea level, they take your breath away. Literally.

The Great Sand Dunes are a Certified Dark Sky Park

We didn’t get to stay overnight, but try to stay nearby if you can. The Great Sand Dunes are a Certified Dark Sky Park, so the star watching is incredible. With little humidity in the atmosphere and no nearby cities there’s no light pollution, so it’s ideal for looking Up. You can enter the park at night. Bring a red LED flashlight if you plan to do this. Read all about it here.

(Above night photos from the NPS Great Sand Dunes website)

Some nights when the weather is clear, the park rangers bring out a big telescope. Rangers are cool.

Other Things to do at Great Sand Dunes National Park

These shallow lakes may not look like much, but they are vital to the ancient rhythms of this giant valley. The snowmelt runoff fills the shallow creeks and pool in the lakes. They act as a giant mirror, reflecting the shimmering distant peaks.

There’s a campground along the lake if you have an RV or tent.

For decades there was a really cool working ranch — the Zapata Ranch, a joint operation with The Nature Conservancy –– on the edge of the national park run by the delightful and caring Phillips family. The vast Zapata Ranch dates back to the 1800s and the Phillips family demonstrated how you can use ranching to in a sustainable way to preserve great tracks of open land. They had a dude ranch and rented horses that you could ride into the park. Unfortunately, they lost their long-term lease. Sad. The next operators are still TBD, so google it to see if there’s a new shepherd for this great land.

(Photo from the Ranchlands website)

In this dry, arid valley, a spot of water attracts birds and wildlife of all types, so this is a great center for birdwatching.

Every Spring and Fall, giant sandhill cranes roost here and beef up before continuing their transit between Alaska, Canada and Mexico. Their numbers aren’t as great as what I wrote about the mass migration in Kearney, Nebraska, where 500,000 cranes roost on their more eastern journey.

— Last Visited September 2020; Post Created January 2025 —

More Information on the Great Sand Dunes National Park

Here is the Great Sand Dunes National Park website, loaded with great info. Read it before you go. I can’t say enough about how useful the information is on the site, especially on month-to-month conditions to help you plan your visit.

Here’s the TripAdvisor page for Great Sand Dunes. And the extremely detailed Wikipedia page.

There are a bunch of different places to stay nearby after the closing of Zapata Ranch, some luxe tentcamps, so rustic lodges, some ratty motels and nice campgrounds.