Great Sand Dunes National Park

We’re planning to be in Colorado for at least a month this year and other than the week of Memorial Day, we don’t have reservations because we wanted to do some boondocking and first come first serve camping.

Our first stop was San Luis State Wildlife Area near Great Sand Dunes National Park. The San Luis Valley is a large rural valley with elevations starting at 7500ft in south-central Colorado. The Sangre de Cristo Range is to the east and the San Juan Mountains are to the west.

With a Colorado State Parks pass, this first come first serve campground is free and has electric hookups and a dump station! We could also see the Great Sand Dunes from our campsite!

On our first visit to the National Park, we were feeling the effects of the elevation and decided to hold off on climbing the dunes. Michael aired down our tires and we attempted driving the Medano Pass Primitive Road.

We didn’t get too far before coming to a creek we weren’t willing to drive our truck through.

You would think there would be a lot of hiking in the Sangres, but there really isn’t much for casual hikers like us. We found a couple of trails that looked doable, but they were still snow-covered. The mountains were even getting new snow during the week we were there, in mid-May.

One easy and popular thing to see is Zapata Falls, which was frozen!

The Great Sand Dunes, reaching 750ft, are the tallest in North America. Most of the sand comes from the erosion of the San Juans. We found it interesting that the tallest dunes of this massive 30-square-mile dune field are named and don’t really shift. You have to walk across Medano Creek to get to them. We finally hiked up to High Dune, which was a tough 3 miles roundtrip.

Next, we boondock for the first time this year in the San Isabel National Forest. I have been worried about our lack of reservations in Colorado, but so far so good!