Backpacking Great Sand Dunes National Park

Our first backpacking trip for the season is under our belts...  Great Sand Dunes National Park has a fascinating combination of a huge dunefield abutting marvelous mountains.  The scenery was not disappointing, but the weather left a little to be desired.  Our itinerary was a two night trip, staying at Little Medano campsite the first night and Indian Grove campsite the second.  We would hike five miles the first day, move camp a mile down the trail the second with free play on the dunes, then head out on day three.  Well, that was the plan at least.

The drive to the park was beautiful.  We headed south, past Pueblo, then westward.  It was an area of Colorado Matt and I had never experienced before.  The rains of the spring made the area quite green.  And the Sangre de Cristo Mountains shot up skyward rather dramatically.  The scene was spectacular!

But as we turned northward, we saw storms in the distance.  And with the brewing storms brewed doubt about whether we should continue.  But blue skies on the western horizon cheered us onward and into the busy Visitor Center to declare our backcountry route (a permit is required for backcountry camping in the mountains... no permit is required to camp on the dunes).  We emerged victoriously from the Visitor Center with backcountry camping permit in hand, parked in the overnight parking area and headed out.

A well-kept campsite at Pinon Flats Campgro

We walked through the Pinon Flats Campground (which, by the way, seems to be a rather scenic campground) and then to our trailhead.  The trail itself was rather sandy from the nearby dunes and lined by cacti.  Cool, right?  Except for when Gus fell backward and basically sat on a cactus.  Oh my gosh.  We almost had to bail right then.  He had 20-30 cactus thorns on his butt.  Thank goodness for tweezers in the first aid kit.  Still, he was in terrible pain until the last thorn was plucked from his gluteus maximus.  But he is resilient and after the thorn extraction, he felt fine and wanted to move on.  So on we moved.

At about mile two, the rain began.  No big deal.  We donned our raingear -- the boys with ponchos and Matt and I with raincoats.  But around mile three, with the rain came wind.  Gus struggled with his poncho whipping in the wind like a sail trying to pull him off course.  At this point we were closer to the campsite than we were to the trailhead.  We weren't turning back.  The temperature dropped to around 35 degrees or maybe colder (we did not have a thermometer).  And with that temperature drop the rain turned to sleet.  Jack and Matt kept a brisk pace and stopped to wait for Gus and me under trees.  Gus was doing the best he could but broke down crying....  the campsite could not come soon enough.

We forded a stream and then we were there.  Hallelujah!  We pitched the tent, unpacked our sleeping bags and jumped in.  It was around 3 p.m. but we were exhausted and frozen and we quickly fell asleep while the rain pelted the tent.  After my nap, my fingers had defrosted and the rain had slowed to a sprinkle, so I emerged from the tent to cook our dinner.  Mountain House Meals chicken fajitas (excellent) and hot tea for all.  We ate, cleaned up, and dove back into the tent.  But nature called, just in time for me to see the tent with the mountains aglow in the evening sun... breathtaking.

The night was cold.  We have camped in colder temperatures, but the wind was strong and sucked the heat out of our tent.  The boys, wearing multiple layers, slept great.  Matt, however, was too cold during the night.  When morning came, so did the question of whether we could continue another day.  Matt and I discussed it and decided to have breakfast, pack up, and move toward Indian Grove, our planned campsite for night two.

One of many deer

On arrival there, we agreed it was a more sheltered campsite.  We proceeded to weigh the pros and cons of continuing our trip.  The weather report had called for only a 20% chance of rain for day one and we had been soaked.  It called for an 80% chance of rain for day two.  We decided not to take our chances.  We remembered the words of one book on backpacking with kids...  it is better to cancel than to backpack in the rain with kids.  So we bailed.  And Gus, who had been crying the day before about hiking in the rain, was crying about leaving early.

We hiked on out.  In the blazing sun.  And got sunburned.  And the kids ran up and down the dunes while Matt and I got more sunburned (we had started out the morning completely bundled up and forgot to put on sunscreen when we removed our layers).  We stopped to notify the ranger that our coveted campsite would be free for the night.

Confession...  I was disappointed to have to cut our trip short.  Especially since it was sunny the whole way out.  As we drove away, the storms started to blanket the mountains in the west.  I don't know if they drenched the Great Sand Dunes National Park.  But, never to be discouraged, the abbreviated trip did ignite in us the desire to plan our next backpacking trips.  And we have three more trips on the schedule for the next couple months...

We will see you on the trail...

-Mama Bear