Great Sand Dunes and Points In-Between

We headed out on a drive around parts of southern Colorado this week, with Great Sand Dunes Park as our eventual destination. Gorgeous weather, warm and sunny, and it seemed as every mile's scenery was more breath-taking than the one before. A fabulous trip. We covered enough distance to justify an overnight stay in Canon City, and while there, had a nice dinner at Merlino's Belvedere, an Italian restaurant we remember fondly from visits many years ago.

Joe had the lasagna

We took a "back" way to Canon City, rather than the faster but much more brutal Interstate route. We worked our way south along the western edge of the plains, going through Bennett, Kiowa, Elbert, and finally Colorado Springs, where we headed south on CO 115 for Canon City. It was a lovely drive, the prairie could not have looked richer with all its golden tones. Add to that endless blue skies and dramatic mountain ranges in the distance...

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The next morning we continued our trek toward the Great Sand Dunes, beautiful, beautiful drive.

We followed the Arkansas River Valley for quite a way, but not usually this close to the river. Much of the road was through beautiful canyons...

...like this one. All along the river there were very nice day use recreation areas which are part of the Colorado Parks System (Arkansas River Headwaters). $7 fee or pass required.This is one of those areas that we stopped in for a few minutes.

Joe taking a short hike around the area

the scenery was gorgeous...

...in every direction

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We stopped in Salida for lunch

and took a drive around the historic downtown area before continuing on

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beautiful view from the road

Our drive took us through Ponca Pass, where we crossed the divide, then we descended into the San Luis Valley. The drive through the valley was mesmerizing, not only from the sheer beauty that surrounded us, with mountain ranges off to both the east and the west, but also from the strange "focusing of the mind" that accompanies driving a road that is completely straight for seemingly endless miles. Which CO 17, the road we took south through the San Luis Valley, certainly was.

another straight stretch of road, Alamosa County Lane 6, heading toward the dunes

The Great Sand Dunes were our destination, at 700+ ft, the tallest dunes in N America. The dunes cover about 30 square miles (11% of the total sand field area), along the western slopes of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, at the north east corner of the valley.

The sand itself was produced by the San Juan Mountains, located about 60 miles away on the opposite side of the valley. Pulverized rock = sand. Over millions of years of wind, abrasion, thaw/ freeze cycle, etc, the sand was created and then blown by prevailing winds across the San Luis Valley and into the sand field area against the Sangre de Cristos. Other winds blow the sand dunes back onto themselves, creating tall dunes and crisp, sculpted edges on some sides.

That is the simple explanation of where the sand came from, the reality is a bit more complex. Lots of information at the Park's website.

The dunes are visible from quite a distance as a much lighter band of color at the mountains' base. This picture was taken from the park entrance, so not too far from the dunes

closer-in view of the dunes from the road

The dunes themselves are accessible to visitors on foot and with pets on leashes. 24 hour hiking permitted, as is camping on the dunes. Sledding and skiing on the sand are supposed to be popular, although park literature said conditions are best after precipitation and that cardboard doesn't work. We didn't try anything exotic, but we did go for a short hike in the sand

it was warm in the sunshine with a rather cool but gentle breeze blowing across the dunes--what a perfect afternoon for a visit!

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we were greeted upon our arrival at the dunes parking area, by a magpie, who was very busy picking off and eating the bugs stuck to the front of cars parking. The bird was quite adept at knocking the crusted-on bugs free so they could be consumed, and its antics were entertaining. Here is a short video, as I filmed, the bird moved underneath the car and out of view.

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All too soon, it was time to point the car in the direction of home. As late as it was, and as many miles as we had to cover coming home from the dunes, we continued south and west until we got on I-25 at Walsenburg, which we took all the way home. Hit some gridlock in Denver rush hour, but otherwise the trip was fine.

back to reality

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Here is a short video of a neon sign in Canon City that Joe found intriguing and wanted to share:

Trip to RockCliff Cabin--1996

This post is about stepping back in time, to a blog post of sorts from 1996, which is included at the end of this post. 
The "post" is a short booklet about a weekend trip to a cabin outside Estes Park, made so we could show family and friends what the place was like. In the days before easy internet access and sharing. As I looked through the booklet after coming across it recently, it immediately jumped out at me as a blog.
And, things have come full-circle, as blogs can now be printed as booklets...
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The version of this post that survived for 14 years was the  "analog" one--the hard copy. Fitting, as it was the intended end product. The digital version is undoubtedly stored on a stack of floppy disks stashed away in deep storage; surviving perhaps, but unreadable by modern drives and software. Of course, 14 years ago that data was just as unreadable by the computers of the day unless they had PageMaker software, which of would allow a WYSWIG view of sorts in a print view setting...unbelievably crude by today's standards, using low-res video cards and monitors. Well, it all made digital sharing impractical, but those tools did allow me to create the RockCliff Cabin blog post as hard copy, which like I said, was what I was trying to do.
The pictures in the account are stills grabbed from an analog camcorder using a battery-powered device called Snappy which plugged into the computer's parallel port and  the camcorder's  video output.

Digital cameras and scanners were quite crude and expensive in those days, and I didn't have access to either, but I was reasonably satisfied with the Snappy set up, and used it for several years.

The pages were laid out in PageMaker and printed on special 720 dpi resolution paper on what was probably the first Epson Stylus printer, the P860A Color II.

The 860A was quite advanced in its day, the only printer offering the "high resolution" of 720 x 720 dpi. I remember we'd been watching printers closely at the time, because I really wanted a way to share and archive some of the stuff I was creating on the computer. Our printer up until then (1995) had been a tractor-fed dot-matrix, so adding a color/ ink jet instantly elevated printing to a whole new level. The printer was hideously expensive, as were the supplies, and the results were slow and often flawed, but I nonetheless loved that printer. And we kept the dot-matrix for documents for several years, so the cost was manageable. 

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RockCliff Cabin is in Hermit Park, a very nice wooded recreation area in some hills outside Estes Park.
Hermit Park is currently owned and operated by Larimer County, but in 1996 it was owned by Hewlett Packard, and used as a perk for their employees. Weekends at the cabins were awarded by monthly drawings, and we were lucky enough to win quite a few stays back when Joe was eligible. The cabins were somewhat rustic and fun, set in semi-isolated lots in beautiful wooded areas. They had a propane heater, cooking burners and chandelier; small wood stove, and an outhouse. Firewood was ready to go in a big bin outside, inside was a table with benches, and built-in bunkbeds. Curtains on the windows, otherwise, bring water, food, linens, dishes, sleeping bags, and whatever else was needed. It was a fabulous place to spend a weekend, we always went in the fall, spring or winter, preferably in colder weather. 

In later years, Agilent, who inherited Hermit Park from HP, eliminated the wood stoves. I think we went once or twice after that change, but we missed being able to enjoy building a fire in the stove then an evening toasting marshmallows...the propane heaters were undoubtedly safer, more convenient, required far less maintenance...but they completely lacked the charm and novelty of the stoves, which we decided were a big part of the experience for us. 

Here are some pictures of the cabins today, they look as if they have been well maintained, and I am so happy to see that. They are a very nice place for a get-away, and now it's nice they're available to anyone with the price of admission, currently $60-80/ night.

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TRIP TO ROCKCLIFF CABIN (the booklet):










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Guess this post was destined to be blogged online, it just took a few years for it to happen!