1 Day At Great Sand Dunes National Park

ByChristine Updated on

Spend a day at Great Sand Dunes National Park exploring the striking sandy dunes and the surrounding mountains. Start with the dunes themselves, spend some time playing in the Medano Creek, drive Medano Pass Primitive Road, and head up to Zapata Falls.

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The Basics

  • Who: We saw people of all ages. Kids especially were having a great time splashing in the river and sledding down the dunes. Hiking up the dunes may be more strenuous for some but there are great views from all around the park regardless if you hike out or not. This national park is actually one of the most pet friendly as most parks only allow them in parking lots and campgrounds, but here you can take them into the day use area of the dunes and in the preserve while keeping them on a leash.
  • What: The tallest sand dunes in North America!
  • Where: A little over 3.5 hours southwest of Denver, CO. Alamosa is about 40 minutes away.
  • When: Our visit in the spring entailed nice warm weather, but it got pretty windy at times and the mornings and evenings were chilly. If you go in the summer, the creek may have stopped running and you’ll want to be even more careful being out in the high heat and watch out for thunderstorms. In the winter it would be really neat to see snow contrasting with the dunes.
  • Why: Explore the dunes, go hiking or sledding, take astounding pictures, play in Medano Creek, visit a nearby waterfall, the list goes on and on!
  • How: Drive in from home or hop a flight to Denver, Colorado Springs, Albuquerque or even a small airport in Alamosa and head in from there.

Things To Do At Great Sand Dunes National Park

Start at the Visitor Center

The park Visitor Center is a good place to start your visit. It has a park movie, exhibits, and a great patio area overlooking the dunes. Next, head down to the dunes themselves.

Climb the Dunes

We only went partway up because if you go to the top it’s a 2 hour round trip and that would’ve been too much for our dog Maggie in the heat of the day. There were a lot of people sledding down the dunes too. Sand sledding at Great Sand Dunes National Park is a really fun way for kids and adults alike to enjoy the dunes.

We’ve been on plenty of other sand dunes in the past including along the shores of Lake Michigan at both Indiana Dunes National Park and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We’ve climbed the sand dunes in Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area near Tillamook, Oregon and even rode a dune buggy through the Oregon Dunes near Florence, Oregon.

Great Sand Dunes National Park, however, has the tallest dunes in North America. It’s also pretty spectacular to have the mountain backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains immediately adjacent to the dunes.

Wade in Medano Creek

Medano Creek was flowing while we were there, but it is only a seasonal stream. It’s worth going when the creek is flowing because taking your shoes off and walking in it as you look at the dunes is really nice. We’d recommend timing a visit with this seasonal creek if possible.

It’s also a great way to keep your pets’ paws cool or cool off after you hike up into the dunes.

You can bring some sand toys and let your kids treat it like a day at the beach without worrying about the waves and the tide.

Drive Medano Pass Primitive Road

After spending quite a bit of time on the dunes and in the river, we drove down Medano Pass Primitive Road. If you have a high clearance 4WD vehicle like we do this is a great road to drive down.

The views are great from here, but you do have to watch for other vehicles so you can find a place to pull over since the road is pretty narrow. Also, soft sand and some river crossings will need to be negotiated.

Hike to Zapata Falls

Outside of Great Sand Dunes National Park on BLM land, there’s another gem worth checking out. It’s called Zapata Falls. The road up to the trailhead is pretty bumpy and wash-boarded out, but once you get to the top you’re rewarded with far-reaching views of the San Luis Valley and the dunes from above.

The trail is not long, only about half mile out to the falls. The last part of the trail requires some rock scrambling to get back into the crevasse where the falls are and a hiking pole definitely comes in handy to help avoid getting your feet wet.

The falls are 25 feet high. This time of year the left hand side of the falls was frozen over and the right hand side was running pretty strongly. It seemed like we may have gotten the best view of all seasons!

Where To Camp

We decided to stay in the nearby San Luis State Wildlife Area campground which has electrical hookups. We had a pretty good idea what our view would be like from having looked at the campground map and knowing which direction we were facing, but it was even more amazing than expected.

We were on the edge of the campground with the lake in front of us (though the lake was dry at this time but it’s still a unique sight with various plants growing in the bottom and white sand patches).

Past that are the sand dunes backing up to the mountains. The sunrise over the mountains was gorgeous and is was worth being up for.

Other Colorado National Parks You’ll Want To Visit

Colorado has multiple other national parks that should be on your bucket list. They are each incredibly beautiful and unique:

Christine is the co-founder of Never Stop Adventuring, and an avid traveler who started traveling the world as a child growing up in a military family. She even lived in Germany for numerous years. Since then she has been to 48 U.S. states, 17 countries, and traveled the U.S. in an RV for over 7 years.

With her 3 kids, the adventures continued family travel style. She has planned and coordinated travel with kids for the last 10 years and shares family travel tips and tricks, destinations, costs and even the mistakes so you can be empowered to take your own family trips with confidence!