Great Sand Dunes National Park

The sun is threatening to peak over the ridge before I even get to the top of the first row of dunes. I give up on making the top and sit down to watch the first rays of light slowly crest over the peaks of the Sangre de Christo Mountains and fall on the cool sand beneath my feet.

It doesn’t take long for the sun to get rid of the morning chill. In half an hour’s time the sand will be warm on my bare feet and by the time I make it all the way back to the truck it’s too hot to hike barefoot anymore.

But just as the sun comes up, most of us on the dunes, and there aren’t many, are still wearing fleece jackets and wrapping our arms around our legs for warmth. I consider heading back after the sun is up, but that highest ridge of dunes is taunting me, some five hundred vertical feet of sand — and no telling what lies beyond it, just another, higher ridge? — that eventually gets the best of me.

I climb it.

Looking back where I came from is impressive, people look like ants scurrying over the dunes.

The dunes themselves are also different up here, the sand is looser, your feet sink deeper and the patterns in the sand, the ridges and ripples shaped by the wind and avalanches are completely different here than they were down below. There are no signs of grass or any other plants up on the top of the larger dunes, just a few track marks from beetles and other creatures that somehow eek out an existence here.

The view over the ridge is not what I had hoped for. Instead of a vast vista of sand dunes there is simply another higher ridge of dunes — maybe two hundred feet up from the summit I’ve already reached. I sit down and enjoy the view, panting, trying to catch my breath. I’m tired, my legs are burning. Climbing in sand is not like hiking through the mountains. For every step you take up, you sink back half the distance, sometimes all of it.

I rest too long. My legs seem capable of only one direction — down. I can see the truck from here and even if I head down now I will have nearly an hour of walking before I get back.

I give up.

I’m tired and I’ve hiked through enough mountains in my life to know that there is always another ridge beyond the one you’re on. There is only one true exception to this rule — Mount Everest. As you approach the final ridge of Everest you can have the distinct and completely assured satisfaction of knowing that there is no ridge beyond it. Actually there are other exceptions as well, but they are few and far between. Usually ridges lead to more ridges.

However, if you were the sort of person that reads signs, you would know that that slightly higher ridge I stared at before giving up on the idea of climbing is in fact the highest ridge on the dunes.

If you’re more like me you wouldn’t read the sign until after your hike, when you’re back in the parking lot again.

Yes, it turns out there is no ridge beyond the one I saw, just thirty miles of endless — lower — dunes. It’s quiet a view I am told. I wouldn’t know.

Some times you win. Some times the mountain wins.

For minute I consider going back up, but my legs already feel like small fires have been lit inside each of my calves and I’ve got miles to go before I sleep.

[Note: this story is park of my quest to visit every National Park in the U.S. You can check out the rest on the National Parks Project page.]