Great Sand Dunes National Park

Leading into Labor Day weekend, I was really itching for another trip. We had been home for 2 months (the horror! ha!) and it was time to get away for a few days and enjoy new scenery. After our trip to Taos a few years ago, we were interested to get back to the desert!

While we spent most of the weekend in Santa Fe and Taos, on Sunday we wanted to do some driving and exploring new areas. Donovan had read about this beautiful scenic drive on Highway 64, so that’s where we started!

From Santa Fe, we headed north to Taos, and then headed west on Highway 64 towards Tres Piedras. The drive was absolutely gorgeous. There was a ton of farm land in the mountains and several overlooks with beautiful views of the plains.

While Donovan flew his drone, I did some map searching to see what we could do once we made it to Tierra Amarilla. When I zoomed out a bit on the map, I realized we were only about 2 hours away from the Great Sand Dunes National Park near Alamosa, Colorado! Neither of us had been to the Great Sand Dunes, and all of a sudden we were very excited to check it out!

We turned north and headed on backroads towards Chama, then hopped on Highway 17 to drive through Fox Creek, Antonito, Bountiful, and La Jara before finally making it to Alamosa where we stopped for lunch.

I really love driving through these small mountain towns and farming communities. There is so much rich history! In Antonito we found the oldest established church in Colorado! Our Lady of Guadaloupe Parish In Conejos, Colorado was built in 1858 and is still standing and actively holding services!

I also found a new love of photographing post offices. I know it sounds silly, but some of these old post offices are in some really cool looking historical buildings and are interesting to see.

Once we made it to Alamosa, we headed towards the Great Sand Dunes National Park. From Alamosa, there is really only one way to the dunes and one way out as the dunes are nestled into the mountains under Blanca Peak.

Upon arriving to the sand dunes, we were really in awe of how massive they were. From afar, they just blend in to the side of the mountains – you can’t really see what you’re getting into until you get closer, and then all of a sudden they’re “BAM” in your face!

Fortunately, we remembered to bring our National Parks Annual Pass so we could easily get into the park for free. If you don’t have an Annual Pass, I highly recommend to get one – especially if you plan to visit at least 2-3 National Parks in a year. It’s worth its weight!

I seriously can’t say enough how massive and impressive the dunes were. I mean, it really did look like the Sahara desert in the middle of Colorado!

At the entrance to the park, there was a shop where you could rent sand boards to slide down the dunes (kind of like snownboarding, but on sand). It looked pretty fun, but knowing we had to drive back to Santa Fe, and we had already arrived at the dunes late in the afternoon, we decided not to rent them.

Finding the dunes is pretty easy once you’re in the park – there’s a turnoff a mile or so into the park with a nice sized parking lot. I will say, for Labor Day weekend, it was pretty busy and the lot was full, but we were lucky and found someone leaving, so we didn’t have to park too far away.

We threw on some sunscreen, our Columbia SPF shirts, and hats, and off to the dunes we went! To get to the dunes, you have to walk about 0.25 miles across this vast flat sandy area. I died laughing because it reminded me of when we had to walk to the Great Salt Lake….except here there was no water! While it doesn’t look far, the sand is thick and hard to walk on. Plus, the desert sun is bright and hot! As you can see in the picture, there weren’t any shady spots to rest under. We took our time walking out to the dunes and spent some time watching kids sled down the dunes. It also wasn’t very windy or breezy which made it that much hotter as well. It was crazy to see how far people had hiked into the dunes!

Overall, I really enjoyed our visit to the Great Sand Dunes National Park! It was a “never been there” location for us, and it was cool to see a part of the country (and Colorado!) that we’ve never seen before. The drive back to Santa Fe from Alamosa was also gorgeous with more small, mountain towns. I wish there were more hours in the day so we could’ve seen all of them!

The best way to finish out the trip was a gorgeous sunset over the Rio Grande Gorge in Taos!