Great Sand Dunes National Park

Great Sand Dunes is such an unexpected environment in Colorado. When everyone thinks of Colorado, you usually think of the Rocky Mountains and skiing. But the eastern half of the state is mostly the plains. Then, boom! Huge mountains spring up seemingly out of nowhere. Just like these huge mountains, the Great Sand Dunes seem to come out of nowhere in southwest Colorado (and they are also surrounded by mountains).

Don’t get fooled by these sand dunes and associating sand with the warm beach. Although the Big Spring Creek allows people to tube in the summer, this place gets cold real fast. A visit in early October gave us pleasant temperatures during the day, but boy did it get cold at night! I remember sitting around the campfire, wearing my down jacket, wrapped in a sleeping bag, and was still cold! But these crisp nights sure gave us some beautiful night skies, the kind of night skies that make you think you’re the only person on the planet.

There are a lot more activities out here than meets the eye. The aforementioned tubing. Plenty of hiking in the mountains around the dunes, including to frozen waterfalls. Hiking, sledding, and camping in the sand dunes. And dogs are even welcome on the dunes, and from watching an Australian Shepherd zoom all around the dunes, I’d guess they love these dunes.