Thursday, May 6, 2010

Great Sand Dunes

Sand dunes and Sangre de Cristo mountains at sunset. Great Sand Dunes National Park, Co.  This photo is of the extreme south western portion of the dune fields from near the entrance.  See map.

I arrived at the Great Sand Dunes for a weekend of camping, hiking and photography to find about 4 inches of fresh, heavy and very wet snow.  The skies were extremely overcast, but it was fairly warm.  Great blobs of snow falling off the trees filled the air with wet plops.

I didn't get many good photos, but I did hike to the top of High Dune (650ft above valley floor).  I went early in the morning and found the icy crust of snow on top of sand to be fairly challenging hiking.  I also scouted out a number of likely locations for some other shots.  I can't wait to return!

4 comments:

Gaelyn said...

Gorgeous colors. The dunes look burgundy.

Al said...

Very pretty. I've been there once, back in 2008, and would love to go back again. In fact, the header picture on my blog is from that trip.

Elettra said...

Hi Russ,I am very happy for your beautiful photo

Unknown said...

Beautiful shot, the lighting is gorgeous...Thomas