When Medano Creek below the dunes doth flow ...

Of course it felt crazy. But the good and beautiful in life sometimes requires a certain nuttiness.

On Wednesday, Tim mentioned he had a day off Friday. Almost immediately I requested my own vacation day, and our long-germinating plan to visit the Great Sand Dunes when Medano Creek’s flow swept in. Too-early Friday morning – 2:30 a.m., after less than three hours of fitful sleep – Tim arrived and we headed south for La Veta Pass, the easiest access to the San Luis Valley. We wanted to beat the crowds certainly to following on Memorial Day weekend, while also catching the light of early morning on North America’s highest dune field. 

At that obscene hour, we had the road to ourselves. We breezed through a sleeping Walsenburg, the snow-dusted Spanish Peaks and a strangely lit La Veta Pass thanks to the full moon. The moon lighted the hills the entire way over the pass. Light began creeping into the valley as we did, pale blue light framing Blanca Peak, the valley’s most prominent mountain, illuminating the snowpack on its rocky flanks above the tree line. The mountains that sheltered the sand dunes also rendered them invisible until we drew within a few miles. 

We pulled into the national park’s Medano Creek lot, which already housed a dozen cars, some likely people who slept in the cars with the full campgrounds. We spotted another dozen cars and RVs at pullouts along the dunes road, probably hoping to get a jump on the holiday week park traffic. Before we could walk through the dry-climate trees and shrubs along the creek bed, we could hear the roar of the water coursing down from Medano Creek. 

When I visited in March, there was barely any sign of a creek bed. But as the snows high in the Sangre de Cristo Range start to melt, the creek becomes engorged and that snowmelt moves down to the dune field, forming what is arguably Colorado’s finest beach. 

A couple who arrived at the same time took pictures with similar zeal. Within 10 minutes, they went from photographing the dunes against the morning light to panic as the woman lost her cell phone in the Medano Creek surges. I brought my dry bag to avoid such an occurrence. While only one to five inches deep, the creek waters can move fast with those rolling waves. We said we shout if we found it, but we couldn’t really look that hard; surging waters would carry off anything that light in a few waves. I felt bad that their trip hit ruin so quickly, but another part of me didn’t since it was complete avoidable. 

Rather than follow the early line of visitors up the easy path to High Dune, the largest sand dune on the field’s easter edge, we walked up the creek a little way then began an ascent away from the crowds. There are no official trails in the sand dunes, so we simply started our own set of tracks into the highlands. 

A few crows buzzed us as we headed into the dunes. Without a real trail we had to survey where we headed up and see whether the sets of footprints actually constituted a good path up. Often they didn’t, but we found our way. Not that the steps came easy. We learned that unadulterated sand waves often provided the sturdiest footing, but even then each step can without a guarantee. 

Beneath us we spotted a group of campers hidden by the dunes – dispersed camping is allowed but involves hiking and carrying your gear deep into the dune field, so many people don’t bother. I had a grudging admiration for those that did, since the SLV has some of the biggest nightly temperature drops anywhere

Tim paused below the rim and I pushed ahead, even as my pace turned into “one step forward, then two steps back.” I hit the top in about100 steps. Breathing hard, I looked into a set of taller dunes and small basins between those ridge and the next. I imagined a trip that wound deeper into the 30-mile dune field, maybe reaching as far as Star Dune, the tallest in the field. 

Before I daydreamed too deeply, the roar of Medano Creek far below brought me back to where I stood. Then I slid and paused my way back to somewhat solid ground. We might have returned to Medano Creek’s floodplain faster with sleds, but the downhill voyage was much smoother. 

We just made our own trail to track us back to the rumpled shore, crossing a field of unexplained greenery in the dunes. From what seem like solid sand, a plain of green shoots arose, with some sprouts coming from seemingly dead limbs on the ground. Near the shore we ran upon another unexpected site, a group of bones, likely from a young mule deer based on a leg bone, a few vertebrae and several ribs. 

Bones

As people rolled in, our Great Sand Dunes adventure seemed to roll up. We had covered a lot of ground in four hours, watching the sun crest the Sangre de Cristo and purge the shadows from the dune field. All the while, Medano Creek continued its surges, and more people congregated on Colorado’s mountainside beach. 

Two years since I last dropped my feet in Medano Creek, the last act at the dunes was preordained. My shoes and socks went away, and feet plunged into the cold miniature rapids built by the creek’s surges. I lingered in my bare feet, the frigid waters coursing over them with those little waves that only Medano Creek can provide. 

Too cold for a normal creek, the waters just felt special, and I never courted hyperthermia as I walked in the surging currents. I let the cold stick with, hoping for many more springs when I could feel those surges rippling over my toes.