Great Sand Dunes

After working until 5pm on Friday, I took off for Durango to do some sightseeing before our railroad inspection. I arrived around 10pm or so and set up my tent. I couldn't see a thing, so I was pleasantly surprised when I awoke in the morning and saw my surroundings for the first time.



It was a little chilly (45 or so) but the dunes were still very fun to crawl on. The dunes were created by winds blowing sand from the San Luis valley against the Sangre de Cristo mountains. The area has several 14ers, which looked very impressive from the valley floor. I'll save those for another trip.
I climbed to the top of High Dune, which is 650 feet tall. Climbing the sand was pretty tiring. As I neared the top of the dunes, the wind began kicking up a bit. Watching the wind kick around the sand was very interesting. The ground was literally moving all around me.


Descending the sand dunes was infinitely more fun than climbing them.

After I filmed the previous video, my camera decided that it didn't like sand too much and locked up. I resorted to taking pictures with my camera phone, which obviously are not nearly as good. I tried to fix it for several hours in the dunes parking lot with no success. This was definitely was not the trip to be without a decent camera. I'm still really frustrated about the whole situation.After my wasted effort in the parking lot, I moved on to Rattlesnake Trestle, a rehabilitation project our company has been working on. It was cool to finally see the actual bridge after looking at so many pictures of it. I was disappointed I didn't see any rattlesnakes.

After leaving the trestle, I drove westward to Durango. It was a pretty rainy drive, but still very cool. Along the way is Wolf Creek Pass. The pass was an early warning of what was to come...beautiful mountains aglow with aspens.



I arrived in Durango around 5 or so and drove to Hermosa Creek to camp. It was still cold and rainy, but I set up my tent anyways. Some cows were very interested in my damp accommodations. After getting soaked setting up my tent and wanting to work on my camera on a table with better lighting, I decided to pack up the tent and headed to a cheap motel. I wanted to camp there because of its proximity to a mountain bike trail, but the trail was a muddy mess, so I thought I might as well leave. I worked on the camera for another couple of hours with no success. Grrr. At least I got a hot shower, I guess.