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From Durango we drove east across the state to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. (National Park #3 for this trip.) The Great Sand Dunes, like so many things in Colorado, are massive. It's impossible to try and describe the scale of these things. The tallest dune is 750 feet above the surrounding landscape. There is a very shallow, very wide creek that runs through the dunes that many people treat like a beach.

Sand Dunes

We made the mistake of wearing our hiking shoes to climb the dunes - the water is no more than a foot or two at its deepest, so it is easy to cross, but wear shoes that you don't mind getting wet and sandy.

There is a mountain pass that will take you across to the Pueblo area. We started taking it but decided not to risk an off-roading trip on our own during this vacation. Plus, the rangers say you have to lower your tire pressure to around 5-10 psi to be able to handle the sand, and we did not have a tire pump or pressure gauge on us.

Here is a view looking from the sandy off-roading trail back to the dunes.

Sandy Trail

From the sand dunes we drove up to Peublo and spent the night at a chain hotel. There was really nothing too remarkable to note about Pueblo, but the hotel we stayed in was nice and clean (Comfort Inn, Pueblo West) and looked new even though it was several years old.