Date: November 3 - 4, 2018
Location: Great Sand Dunes National Park
Distance: 10 miles
Weather: Cold and Windy!
Group: Landon and Mat
I usually don't go to the same place within a single year, but I had so much fun here in May, that Landon and I decided to check it out when it was colder. It snowed the night before we arrived, so the dunes were a fun mix of sand and snow.
The weather was moody. Sun and calm made a brief appearance, only to be rudely pushed aside by a quick storm that brought graupel.
Several more rounds of wind, sun, snow, graupel ensued. We found a nice place to camp early in the afternoon and set up our tent. It is on the heavy side, but handles the blowing sand better than the open tarps I typically use.
We grabbed a few photos and hiked around for a bit before a bigger storm chased us into the tent. The alternating rounds of warm sun and muted impact of snow and graupel on the tent turned out to be a great soporific and Landon amazed me with his teenage ability to fall asleep within 3 seconds of talking to me.
Most of the snow melted in the sunlight, seeped into the top few inches of sand, and turned into ice overnight. We awoke to giant, frozen mountains of sand that were too slick/steep to walk across in many cases.
It was a cold morning (17 degrees with the wind chill), and it took a few miles for us to warm up. Once we could feel our fingers and toes again, we enjoyed the hike back out.
