On June 22nd, we set out for our 7 hour drive to Colorado early AM. The ride was pretty boring, flat, and uneventful with the exception of stopping in the town of Colby, KS which was in Thomas county. Since this is ironically my brother’s name, we had to stop at the visitor’s center and get a few souvenirs.

We checked into Great Sand Dunes Oasis for a no-frills 1-night stay, which was just a holdover until we could check into our site at Pinon Flats Campground, which is inside the park. June 23rd and 24th we were able to snag a reservation at Pinon Flats. For the first time on our RVMoon, we were able to set up camp properly and even took the time to detach the Pilot. We had a back-in site, which was a fun challenge, but we made sure to Get Out And Look! After setting up camp and taking a nap (Christi will want you to know that my 15 minute rest turned into an hour long nap – but it was glorious), we rented a sand board and a sand sled and ventured out to the dunes for some trial runs. Our first Sand Dunes adventure sprung on us before we even stepped foot on the dunes. In getting ready for this hike, we didn’t realize that there was a 40 yard wide stream between the parking lot and the dunes (although very shallow). Like the knight in shining armor that I am, I took off my shoes and carried my Princess across the trickling brook. We made it to the peak of the first dune only to get hit by an intense wind gust just as we crested, which threw up sand that felt like millions of pins being shot into your skin. We quickly took cover until it died down, and then took our first rides down the dunes on our boards.

We took a few more runs down smaller dunes and Christi quickly found out that the sled was her preferred option (She laughed and screamed as she tumbled down every 5 feet of her 1 short-lived sand board run).

After the dunes, we took a pit stop back at camp and hiked out from there to the Dunes Overlook for sunset, enjoying some wine and snacks for a light dinner.

Then we headed back to camp and relaxed for the evening, finally making a fire at our campsite for the first time using firewood leftover from the campers before us. Apparently, the firewood was radioactive because it threw off a bright green flame. 

On Monday, we took the morning to catch up on some work and photos, then headed out for our big hike into the dunes at the exact time they recommend not going out to the dunes (peak of the afternoon). We strapped our boards to our bags and hiked out into the dunes, making it to the top of High Dune, (2nd tallest dune approx. 1 mile out).

Christi really wanted to make it out to Star Dune, which is the tallest dune in North America, but is about 1.5 miles further out so we kept on going deeper into the dunes, hiking up and then boarding down along the way.

Eventually, it was reaching our established turn around time and we hadn’t reached Star Dune yet, so I took a break at the top of a dune and watched as my crazy wife dropped all her gear (including her water) and half jogged another half mile or so over 4 more sets of dunes just so she could say she made it to Star Dune. Hiking through sand sucks, so I was happy to relax for a bit and did not have the same need to be able to say “I made it to Star Dune”. Of course, she made it to Star Dune, but never even reached the peak because she wussed out and said it was too steep and she was scared of getting caught in a “sand avalanche”.  (Wife’s edit: I got CAUGHT in a sandvalanche and it was about a 600ft. slide straight down.) So she can now proudly say “I reached Star Dune” but with the disclaimer; “but I didn’t actually go to the top of it, even though it was only about 50ft away”.

When Christi finally made it back to me, she didn’t have quite the same pep to her step, and looked like she’d been cast away in the desert for days (she cleverly decided sunscreen was not necessary in the mid afternoon sun surrounded by bright sun-reflecting sand). She finally gave in and applied some sunscreen, but looked (and apparently felt) as if she was going to die for our entire 2.5 mile trek back to the car.  

We did get to do a lot of sweet rides down the dunes on our way back, which was definitely the highlight for me.

Of course, I got a bit too confident on one ride and threw a complete yard sale halfway down a very steep dune (the boards do not handle quite like snowboarding or wakeboarding).  That sh** hurt. Sand got everywhere. Of course, that didn’t stop me from riding down several more descents on our way back.  Christi had her time to shine on our last and one of the longest runs of the day when she had gained a whole lot of speed but then her wax started to run out (I think that’s what happened – you have to wax before each run and it gets really slow when the wax runs out).  Just as her wax ran out, she hit a slight bump and ended up sliding completely off her board, eating loads of sand as she skidded to an abrupt halt in a plume of sand with no board under her. It’s now 24 hours later and she’s just exclaimed in excitement that she thinks she finally got all of the sand out of her eyes. The rest of the hike (more of a crawl for Christi) was uneventful except the storm that seemed to be brewing in the distance. Luckily, it never actually hit us and seemed to disappear over the mountains.

Miraculously, Christi gained a second wind (mostly because she had made plans and was determined to do everything she had planned) and after the dunes hike we quickly drove out to Zapata Falls, which is just outside the park and was supposed to be a short hike to a neat mountain waterfall.  In reality, it ended up being a 2.8 mile drive up a mountain on one of the world’s crappiest roads followed by a .5 mile hike through the worlds most prolific mosquito breeding grounds to a 100 yard wade/rock hop through the worlds coldest stream (any more than 10 seconds submerged and you’d lose feeling in your feet) only to reach a 20 foot waterfall nestled in a canyon around a turn so that you could really only catch a quick glimpse of about half of it.

After that incredibly unsatisfying glimpse, the only option was to return through the hell that it took to get there. When we finally got back to our car we had a mosquito massacre inside our car as Christi smashed the 17 mosquitos that had managed to slip into our car in the 4 seconds the doors were open. The one saving grace of the entire trip was that we caught another beautiful (although very bumpy) sunset on the drive down as the road overlooked the dunes and the plains in front of them.

Since it was now much later than initially planned, Christi finally gave in to changing her plans and instead of heading into town 30 minutes away, we headed back to camp where I whipped up dinner as Christi made herself useful by attempting to get sand out of her eyes for an hour and sweeping the RV for the 181st time since we started this trip a week ago. After dinner, in an effort to clean off all the sand ingrained in every inch of her body, Christi decided to christen the RV shower. It was a hilarious 10 minute ordeal trying to figure out how the controls worked with Christi screaming about getting scalded one second and then about freezing the next.  Hopefully next time will be smoother. I didn’t get to shower since Christi had filled our grey water tank over the past 2 days with her meticulous dish washing. Body wipes it is. Hopefully I’ll get a proper shower in Denver.