From the Spanish Peaks area I decided to head west over La
Veta Pass to the San Luis Valley for a different route back to Denver . The San
Luis Valley is a kind of American Altiplano, a huge almost flat valley ringed
by mountain peaks of the Sangre de Christo and San Juan Ranges at an altitude
of around 7,000 feet. Those conditions make it quite cold almost year round. It
is very lightly populated, originally settled by Spaniards heading north from
New Mexico, and famous for such crops as quinoa and purple potatoes.

What the valley might be most famous for, though, is the
Great Sand Dunes, originally preserved as a national monument in the 1930s and
elevated to national park status in 2004. The dunes were formed around 400,000
years ago when sand deposited along the Rio Grande River’s course was blown
eastward to the base of the Sangre de Christo Range. The dunes now cover 19,000
acres and are as tall as 750 feet, some of the world’s highest.

There are some activities like hiking to other parts of the
preserve but mostly what you do when you go to the Great Sand Dunes is climb up
the dunes and slide down. You treat them like a big sand box next to the
mountains. I’ve now been to the Great Sand Dunes three or four times on trips
to and from New Mexico, but my first visit stands out most in my mind because
it was in a very cold November 1991 when I stopped on my way to Santa Fe where
I was meeting a friend for Thanksgiving. The dunes were then partially covered
in snow, and the entire valley looked especially white and bleak. I recall
feeling an immense sense of being in “The Real West”.