Walking Mosca Pass: Fall Color, Quiet Creeks, And A Slice Of Colorado History

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Sand that moves like a stormy sea, a creek that sings under aspen fire, and a ridge that widens the world—this Mosca Pass hike delivers more than a modest mile count suggests. We start at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, trace Mosca Creek through shifting meadows and timber, and climb a steady grade toward a saddle lined in late-September gold. Along the way, we pause at a rock marker to unpack pioneer footsteps and revisit Zebulon Pike’s vivid line about dunes as waves, then follow the faint bones of an old toll road that once pulled wagons over the range before a 1911 washout rewrote the route.

At the top, Mosca Pass opens into color: aspens flaring across the ridge, a meadow catching light, and the San Luis Valley stretching under a high, clean sky. We trade route notes—3.7 miles to the pass, about 850 feet of gain, two hours at a leisurely pace—and share small, practical wins like letting the creek set your rhythm and stopping often to look back at the dunes below. The contrast is the point here. The desert gives way to forest, history brushes against wilderness, and a gentle trail still finds a way to feel expansive. On the descent, an abandoned truck stirs a round of theories, and the old road’s profile tells a quiet story about water and time.

If you’re scouting Colorado hikes with fall color, moderate effort, and real payoff, Mosca Pass belongs on your list. Come for the views and stay for the textures: the hiss of meadow grass, the cool draw by the creek, the sudden hush in the trees. Watch, share your best guess about the truck’s fate, and tell us your favorite shoulder-season hike. If you enjoy the journey, tap 'subscribe,' hit the thumbs up, and share this episode with a friend who needs an easy win with a panoramic finish. 

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Hi there.
Craig the Natural Medic hikingon the Mosca Pass Trail.
Great sand dunes.
National Park and Preserve.
Outside of Alamosa, Colorado.

(00:23):
It's a 3.7 mile hike to the topof Mosca Pass.
Hope you'll join me as we go up.
There's a tablet marker on thisrock here.
Talks about the pioneers whotrekked over the Mosca Pass to
settle here in the San LuisValley.

(00:45):
And Lieutenant Zebulon Pike wasone of the first Americans to
record the impressions.
He described them in his journalas appearing exactly as a sea in
a storm except as to color.
Definitely as we climb higher,we're gonna see some fall colors
starting to appear as it's lateSeptember here in Colorado.

(01:06):
Should be nice to see.
About a mile, two tips, mile anda quarter into the hike.
So getting there slowly.
Let's keep going.
Looking back from here, you candefinitely see the crater San

(01:30):
Luis Valley, or a lot of it, andin the foreground here, you can
see the dunes.
Pretty cool.
Hey, if you're liking thisvideo, make sure to give it a
thumbs up.
And that gets out to otherpeople.
Now back to the video.
At about the two mile mark,going up a little bit over

(01:52):
halfway to the top.
Done about 850 feet of climbing.
Gradual climbing, not too bad.
But make sure and stop and checkout your scenery.
You're following Moscow Creek,pretty much your entire journey.
It's flowing nicely today.

(02:15):
And look at this up here.
More foliage turning fallcolors.
Let's keep going.
Got a wide variety of terrainand vegetation throughout your
trail.
More of an open meadow here withsome forest up ahead.

(02:38):
Pretty cool.
Getting close to the end here.
About a mile to go.
Just exited out of thewilderness portion of the
National Preserve at Great SandDunes.
Now the trail has kind ofchanged to more of a road.

(02:59):
Was said that Mosca Pass used tobe a toll road.
And people were coming to settlethis side of the valley.
And let's see why.
Wow.
It's really pretty up there.
And if you see those aspens ontop of that ridge changing

(03:22):
colors, there's a big kind ofmeadow down a little bit below
it.
And of course the aspens closeby are also changing colors.
Man, what a beautiful time to beup here.
Alright, so what you see beforeyou is Mosca Pass.
This is the top here in theNational Park and Preserve.

(03:45):
It's like a little signage arearight there.
Those folks are eating.
That's technically Mosca Passthere, but man, look at this
beautiful view.
All the beautiful colors.

(04:06):
Wow.
So beautiful.
What a beautiful view of thepass.
I think it took about two hoursto get to the top here.
Probably won't take quite aslong, maybe about an hour, hour
twenty to get down.
Look forward to that.
Meet you on the way down.

(04:28):
Washed out in 1911.
And then they did not resumecaring for the road.
But you can see right here theprofile of the slope.
Let's continue down the trail.
This way.
My impression was that all ofthis part of the park was in the

(04:51):
wilderness area, but I guessnot.
There's the sign, I'm justpassing it.
So I go back into thewilderness, part of the park.
Shouldn't be too big of a dealto go back down.
So let's do that.
There's an old truck here.

(05:12):
Considering this area became apark in the 1920s.
It's pretty old.
But what happened?
The driver beer off the road onpurpose to try to avoid a toll?
Or were there flood waters?
I mean, we'll never know.
But what do you think?
Let me know your guesses in thecomments below.

(05:32):
Well, I hope you enjoyed thatvideo.
It was a good hike up to the topof Mosca Pass.
Not too hard of a trail.
Lots of beautiful scenery anddefinitely different than the
sand dunes below in the mainpart of the park.
I highly recommend you do thishike up if you like uh nice
forest scenery and mountains andcreeks and streams and that kind

(05:54):
of stuff.
And of course, right now, whenwe did it, beautiful fall
colors.
If you like this video, makesure to give it a thumbs up.
Think about subscribing to thechannel if you enjoyed seeing
this.
And if you want to see some morestuff, check out one of these
videos right here.
See you out there on the trail.
Bye bye.