Exploring North America's Tallest Sand Dunes: A Journey Through Great Sand Dunes National Park

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The tallest dunes in North America reside unexpectedly in Colorado, where wind and water have shaped massive sand formations surrounded by mountain ranges. This remarkable landscape serves as both a natural basin that collects eroded sand and a historic landmark, first documented by Zebulon Pike in 1807.

• Natural basin surrounded by mountains creates perfect conditions for sand collection
• Sand surfing opportunities available on the dunes
• Medano Creek flows seasonally at the base of the dunes
• Multiple hiking options and off-road driving available for exploration
• Archaeological evidence shows Clovis people hunted mammoths and ancient bison here
• Three distinct ecosystems converge: desert, prairie, and mountain habitats
• Weather can change dramatically from pleasant to snow-covered with limited visibility
• Four-wheel drive vehicles needed beyond the "Point of No Return" on Medano Pass Road
• Sabka wetlands beneath the dunes provide crucial water sources for wildlife

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This one's going to be a quick one.
Today, guys, I was in theneighborhood, thought I'd stop
in to Great Sand Dunes NationalPark and Preserve.
Let's take a look at the signhere.
Welcome to the tallest dunes inNorth America shaped by the
forces of wind, water.
Huge dunes are textures,shadows, habitats and
experiences Pretty cool.
Let's go take a look.

(00:22):
You might be asking yourself whyis this here in the middle of
Colorado?
The answer is simple yetcomplex.
You have these immense dunefields surrounded by a ring of
mountains.
You have mountains over hereand all the way.
Because of that, it's kind oflike a natural little basin that

(00:43):
collects all the sand as iterodes from the surrounding
mountains.
People coming towards me andpeople that are behind me did
sand surfing.
How crazy is that?
Definitely want to come backand do that, just to revisit
this sign.
They say shoes, not sandalsals,because it can get very hot in

(01:06):
the summertime.
Protect the pets feet and watchout for lightning.
A couple different hikes you cando.
Just depends on what you wantto do and where you want to go.
The surrounding ridges you canalso venture into.
There's some off-road drivingthat goes up that way Somewhere,
I'm not exactly sure where,probably down off the paved road

(01:28):
as well.
Over here in the far side ofthe parking lot, there is a
changing area.
It looks like a restroom, butI'm not sure there's a pit
toilet which I just used.
What a lovely view of the dunes, though it's so crazy to look
at.
Right here behind me is theMountainville Trailhead which
takes you to Muska Pass and someother places, and it's right

(01:53):
across the road from the dunefield.
This panel right here talksabout Zebulon Pike.
He crossed the southwesternpart of the Louisiana Purchase
and he camped here January 28,1807.
And they had just crossed theSangre de Cristo Mountains.
They were very worn out fromthat and they were supposed to

(02:14):
look for those southern,southwestern boundaries of the
Louisiana Purchase and try tofind the source of the Arkansas
Red Rivers.
Lieutenant Pike was the firstperson to describe the sand
dunes in writing.
Isn't that neat?
Even though we're in a dry,sandy environment here at the
dune field area, there arestreams out here I mean north

(02:38):
over here and at the basethere's kind of like a little
dark spot.
You may not be able to see iton the camera.
That's the start of MedanoCreek.
As they get more and more snowmelt.
I heard one of the people inthe visitor center.
It will get very full and, justlike anything else out here,

(02:59):
water is critical.
One thing about the dunes isthey do serve as a landmark for
people.
A lot of people use these.
There is a road here MedanoPass, primitive Road, four-wheel
drive High Clearance and theMoscow Pass Trail, which both
follow tough, rough, historicroutes over the Sangre de

(03:21):
Cristos, which are located rightbehind me, right here.
Well, that was a quick anddirty of the great sand dunes.
I'm hoping to come backsometime soon, hopefully in the
next couple of weeks.
Spend some longer time here.
Definitely hit like.
If you enjoyed this video,subscribe so you don't miss that
.
And here's a little sweepingview of everything Blanca Peak

(03:43):
and the dunes.
The landscape you see beforeyou is evidence of a changing
world.
You have fossil evidence ofthese large bison looking
creatures.
They look like bison becausethey are bison, but they're a
different species than modernbison that we see out here in

(04:03):
the west.
These are bison that we see outhere in the West.
These are bison antiquaeus,which were a more primitive
version of bison a prior version, if you will and they found
those bones here on Great SandDunes National Park and they
also found Clovis spear points,used for hunting very large

(04:24):
mammals such as Colombianmammoths, so large lakes existed
here on the valley floor.
You can see the valley goes along, long way and it's pretty
much ringed entirely bymountains.
Things dried out.
They had lush wetlands and theywere replaced by grasslands and

(04:45):
forests, and the mammoths thatwere here were extinct, and a
huge, now extinct bison, which Ialready mentioned, survived
longer and they were able tohunt those, but they didn't last
as long either.
Here in the Great Sand Dunes youhave different animals that
kind of interlope for lack of abetter term such as proghorn,

(05:07):
antelope, elk, burrowing owls,because you have a mixture of
desert species, prairie speciesand more mountain species coming
through here.
The watershed is where all thewater collects.
Up in the mountains you havethe dune field.
Below that you have sand sheetscalled the sabka.
The sabka are a form ofwetlands where the sand is

(05:30):
saturated and that's placeswhere birds and other creatures
can get water.
So pretty interesting.
This is really like a two-partvideo that I included together.
One was when I visited in, say,early April of 2025, after I
went to Leadville.
I just dropped by for a fewminutes to check it out, and the

(05:54):
weather actually wassurprisingly good.
I came back in May when I couldspend a little bit longer time,
and if you continue watchingthe video, you're going to see
that it didn't go as planned.
Hope you still enjoy the videoand you'll keep watching.
Back to the video.
Hey folks, welcome to Great SandDunes National Park and
Preserve.
I was here a couple of weeksago when I was coming out of

(06:16):
Leadville Been in Pagosa for acouple of days, wanted to stop
by and do some things here inthe park.
Wasn't really anticipating thisweather, though I came from
this direction.
Over here I'm at what you callthe Point of no Return in Modano
Pass.
Let's look at it real quick.
This is where I want to startthe video today.

(06:39):
Beyond this point, you need ahigh clearance four-wheel drive
vehicle with low capability andthere's soft sand ahead that
might hinder your progress, andalso today there's snow.
Anyway, hope you'll stick withme to check out Great Sand Dunes
National Park and Preserve.

(07:00):
You can stay in the backcountry.
There are some tables here.
I wouldn't be staying in thebackcountry tonight because it
looks cold and I'm just notprepared for it.
It's not just sand dunes here.
The sand dunes actually areover there.
You just can't see them becausethe weather is so crappy over

(07:21):
there.
You just can't see them becausethe weather is so crappy.
Let's walk up here to take alook at some of the trailhead
stuff.
Through the magic of video, wewill magically end up at the
trailhead sign, if you look onthere.
There's two designated placeson here.
That shows us where we are.
Here's the visitor center andhere's where you come into the

(07:43):
park.
I drove past the campground tothe left side of it and drove to
the point of no return, whichis basically where you can get
with a regular vehicle, anon-four-wheel drive vehicle,
even though mine is.
With the weather conditions Iwasn't necessarily sure I wanted
to do this, but it looks okay.

(08:04):
High dune is right here,stardune is here and then you
have other dunes out in the dunefield all around here.
This is all wilderness areawhere the dune area is along
some other areas of the park.
This is a topographic profileplus underlying geology.
Here we're here, at the pointof no return.

(08:27):
The Pinyon Flats Campground isto our south.
This shows you different placesthat you might end up on.
I don't know that it's just ahardcore off-road travel on this
road At times I imagine itcould be, but we're going to go
check out some other parts ofthe park.
I had tried to make this more ofof a lengthy video but

(08:50):
unfortunately, because of theweather, just not going to
happen.
Let's take a look.
I'm on the entrance road.
The window's a little foggy,not too bad.
That's the visibility that Ihave.
Don't think I'll be able to doanything here, so I think I'll
just continue down the road tothe store.

(09:11):
So I hope you enjoyed thatvideo.
If you did give it a thumbs up,think about subscribing to the
channel for future content.
I know it didn't really turnout like I wanted it to, but I
hope you still enjoyed it.
If you have questions, commentsetc.
Let me know below and staytuned for another video and
other videos, of course, aboutother places, other topics, tips

(09:36):
, tricks, etc.
Product reviews, all that kindof good stuff.
And until you, you next timewatch one of these videos up
here.
Thanks for watching and yoursupport.
See you on the trail.
Bye.