Camping on Sand Dunes
It’s finally May and it’s arguably just warm enough to start backpacking in southern Colorado. We wanted to break in all of our new gear to prepare for our backpacking trip in Iceland later this summer! The biggest upgrade of all might be that I finally bought a new backpack and upgraded from my cheap blue one off of Amazon that I used in New Zealand and somehow, it made the trip to Austria too.
Backpack then…
and now… a huge improvement!
We weren’t just testing out our gear, but also our food. This was a big experiment with backpacking food and we love it! There are so many amazing meals from Backpacker Pantry and other brands and we absolutely loved the Pad Thai that we ate at the Sand Dunes. It won’t be a big deal at all eating that many backpacker meals in Iceland. Another new discovery of ours was the Bob’s Red Mill Oatmeal cups. You just add hot water and they’re much more flavorful than simple oatmeal packets. Plus, they make a great coffee mug after you're finished with breakfast ;)
Our drive into the park was beautiful because we came in via the 4WD road to the park - it took us through a bunch of bighorn sheep and a very lush area nestled within the mountains near the sand dunes - it was a super cool juxtaposition.
We showed up early in the morning to get a permit to camp on the dunes because the backpacking there is permitted only. We were lucky to get a permit in the zone we were hoping for & quickly started out our hike. After hiking only a few miles into the dunes it had already felt like a marathon. The sand is wildly tiring. The views were unbelievable though with the mountains surrounding the dunes themselves. It’s amazing to think of the wind patterns and natural storm cycles that create and perpetuate those dunes.
Once we finally set up camp, the views just kept getting better. The golden hour on the dunes was spectacular and we ventured out to take photos. We just had to be really careful to remember where our tent was! It was a surreal experience to cook dinner on the sand and just admire where we were - plus Great Sand Dunes National Park is recognized as an International Dark Sky Park so it was no surprise that the stars were unbelievable.
The beauty of it definitely masked the fact that we had sand everywhere - but that’s kind of inevitable when you’re cooking, sleeping, and eating on sand. It was almost impossible to keep sand out of the tent! On our hike out, I noticed some animal prints that I thought might be a coyote. I took photos, comparing the size of my hand to the prints, and was excited to show those photos to a ranger at the visitor center to confirm my suspicions. Turns out, that conversation left me feeling incredibly embarrassed as the prints were from a mouse! This left me feeling like “the girl who cried wolf”. I will not be making that mistake again!
We had an amazing time at Great Sand Dunes National Park and I’d go back and camp on the dunes again in a heartbeat. Plus, we’re feeling great and ready for Iceland! Looking forward to that trip coming up very soon.