Great Sand Dunes National Park has the tallest dunes in North America are the centerpiece in a diverse landscape of grasslands, wetlands, conifer and aspen forests, alpine lakes, and tundra. Experience this diversity through hiking, sand sledding, splashing in Medano Creek, wildlife watching, and more!
Medano Creek, flowing at the base of Great Sand Dunes, is one of the few and best places in the world to experience "surge flow", where creek water comes in rhythmic waves.
Whether you splash in Medano Creek, slide down the dunes, go birdwatching in wetlands, or ascend a 13,000' peak, you'll discover many kinds of wilderness recreation at Great Sand Dunes.
One of the most valued features of the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is one that can't be seen. According to a recent Soundscape Study conducted by the National Park Service, this park is the quietest national park in the 48 contiguous United States.
Many visitors to the site try to sled down the dunes. The Park Service provides hints as to the best time to sled (when the sand is wet) and which equipment works best.
Visitors anytime other than late fall through early spring are also advised to avoid bare feet or sandals, and stick with sturdy, closed footwear. While the sand looks alluring, its chocolate color absorbs heat. The daylight sand temperature can reach 140 degrees and will burn bare feet.
Some of the first people to enter the San Luis Valley and the Great Sand Dunes area were nomadic hunters and gatherers whose connection to the area centered around the herds of mammoths and prehistoric bison that grazed nearby. They were Stone Age people who hunted with large stone spear or dart points now identified as Clovis and Folsom points. Like nearly everyone else until about 400 years ago, they walked into the San Luis Valley. They apparently spent time here when hunting and plant gathering was good, and avoided the region during times of drought and scarcity.
Gold and silver rushes occurred around the Rockies after 1853, bringing miners by the thousands into the state and stimulating mining businesses that operate to this day. Numerous small strikes occurred in the mountains around the San Luis Valley. People had frequently speculated that gold might be present in the Great Sand Dunes, and in the 1920s, local newspapers ran articles estimating its worth at anywhere from 17 cents/ton to $3/ton. Active placer mining operations sprang up along Medano Creek, and in 1932 the Volcanic Mining Company established a gold mill designed to recover gold from the sand. Although minute quantities of gold were recovered, the technique was too labor intensive, the stream too seasonal—and the pay-out too small—to support any business for long.
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