The right side of the dunes is the "front" relative to the visitors center. Medano Creek flows along the base of the dunes from the mountains during higher flows. While it hasn't reached the main visitors area yet at the time of this trip (early April), you can see the water below the sand in the lower part of the picture.

The setting for the dunes is spectacular: the flat valley to the west with the 13,000+ foot mountains of the Sangre de Cristos to the east. The picture above shows how the bowl formed by the Sangres at this point collects the sand to form the dunes. During extremely high winds, some of the sand actually makes its way over the two passes (Medano and Music) into the valley beyond.

The picture below captures the entire panorama of the dunes (about 6 miles wide) from several miles to the south.

Like nearly all the tourists to the Dunes, our junior high kids could hardly wait to play in the sand! Personally, I prefer playing in the creek but, even if it had ben flowing when we were there, the water would have been very cold since it would be snowmelt!

The girls below are using the telescope at the visitors center to look at the dunes but mostly they saw the blurry faces of their fellow students as they looked into both ends! This was our first stop on the tour so there was a lot of exuberance.

The full name of this Park is the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve.

The girls decided to store their water and other drinks in holes they dug in the sand. Since the sand is moist under the surface, this keeps the drinks cool. Clever. They also left their shoes there; walking in the loose sand is much easier barefoot.

The dunes proper are a mile or so from the parking area across the creekbed. We didn't have time to let them walk over to them so we had to be content with playing in the sand nearby.

Notice the people over the girls' heads nearing the base of the dunes (below). People standing on the top of the nearest peaks are barely visible in the picture above right (click for a larger view).

As they do each stop, the boys break out the football and play some 5 man skirmishing. In this case, barefoot! Since there was a lot of falling down, they had to have had a generous amount of sand in their clothes.

As the trip progressed, the two sexes slowly mingled a bit more but only on a personal basis. There were always some segregation (which made it easier for the sponsors!)

The Tabblo for the entire trip is here.