After our hikes at Palo Duro Canyon in West Texas, we roadtripped north to Alamosa, Colorado, gateway to Great Sand Dunes National Park. When we’d lived in Colorado years ago, we’d driven by this park several times enroute to climbs of nearby 14teeners, but never actually stoped for a visit. We were going to rectify that omission on this trip. You can hike on the dunes themselves – a la Beau Geste – but there are other hiking trails in the park. The most accessible of these – it starts almost at the visitor center – is the Mosca Pass Trail and that was the one we chose. It also tops out at around 9,800 feet and would thus be snow-free by now (unlike some of the surrounding peaks).
It had been nice and sunny as we drove up to Alamosa from Texas but, of course, when the day of our hike rolled around, the clouds were rolling in over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains which form the eastern boundary of the park.
The Mosca Pass Trail is very easy to follow as it climbs gently up along Mosca Creek toward the pass. This route was in use for thousands of years by Native Americans and was later used by noted non-indigenous explorers such as Zebulon M. Pike, John C. Fremont, and Kit Carson. At one time this trail was a toll road and evidence of a road prism is occasionally visible.
The hike up was under a cloudy, milky sky that wasn’t very supportive of photographs but there were a few points where the canyon and the clouds allowed for a view out west toward the San Luis Valley and the dunes.
But by the time we’d reached the more level, more open areas higher up on the trail, the clouds had parted and we were once again in that bright Colorado sunshine we’d known when we lived in Denver.
The sun brought a greater vibrancy to the early wildflowers popping-up along the trail.
Jurisdictionally, this hike starts in the national park, traverses the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness Area, and ends in the San Isabel National Forest (where the pass is located).
We went up to the pass, gazed out to the east, and then started back down, under sunny and picturesquely cloudy skies.
We soon reentered the wilderness area,
and strolled through meadows almost starting to show some wildflowers.
The lower half of the trail moves through a much narrower part of the canyon, hemmed in between the creek and towering rock walls,
but opening in a few places for a view out to the valley and the dunes.
After the hike, we went over to see the dunes, first from the park road,
and then from a viewing area right on Medano Creek. Even though this was a weekday, there were a lot of people visiting this park and climbing on the dunes – the little people specks looked like ants on a mound of sugar.
To get to the dunes from here, you have to wade across wide but very shallow Medano Creek. We’d had a good hike, so we lacked the requisite enthusiasm for wading through cold water and hiking across loose sand. Plus the weather, while sunny, was far from warm, so we opted to just appreciate the dune from afar.
A short (6.5 miles round-trip; 1,800 feet of elevation gain) but nice hike at altitude (8,200 to 9,800 feet) up into the aspens characteristic of Colorado’s high country. It sure brought back memories of our time in the Rockies. One of the more out-of-the-way national parks but one well worth a visit. If you fear salt water but like sand, this is the place for you!
BOOTS on the TRAIL 
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