Great Sand Dunes National Park Hiking Guide

The Great Sand Dunes National Park is one of four national parks located in Colorado and probably the most unique. The park is a great destination all year round with plenty to do once you are inside. While most people visit the sand dunes themselves, there are other opportunities inside the park to hike more traditional Colorado high alpine terrain as well. The Great Sand Dunes National Park is a must-visit if you are passing by or live in Colorado. Hiking options at Great Sand Dunes National Park are not limited to any season so visit year round.

Great Sand Dunes National Park Quick Facts

Great Sand Dunes National Park Rating: ★★★★ (⅘ Stars)

Distance: Various: For the sand dunes themselves, most people hike up to the largest dune visible from the parking lot which is about 3 miles RT (exact distance is dependent on the path you choose). However, if you hike outside of the dunes there are a variety of other hikes as well.

Elevation Start: 8,051 ft

Summit: 8,596 ft (high dune summit)

Estimated Time to Complete: 1-2+ Hours total (depending on trail)

Difficulty: Walk in the Park – Moderate What does this mean?

Season: Year Round (Expect some snow December – March)

Check the Weather Forecast

Directions to Great Sand Dunes National Park

Getting Here:There are a variety of ways to get to Great Sand Dunes National Park. Your best bet would be to plug your location into Google Maps or your favorite navigational device.

Fee: There is a $15 fee to enter the park, they accept cash and credit cards.

Parking: In order to enter the park you must pay the $15 fee or present your national parks annual pass. Once you are inside the park, there are a variety of places to park and start your hike.

Summary

Dogs: The park ranger told me, “Dogs are allowed anywhere in the park as long as they are kept on a leash.” This information is slightly different than what is listed on the website, but to be honest with you Great Sand Dunes National Park is not the most dog friendly place to go. When the wind is high in the area, the dunes are miserable enough for humans and I would not recommend bringing your dog on a day like that. During the summer months when the temperatures are higher, I would not recommend going too deep into the dunes with your dog (or quite frankly at all).  In general, Great Sand Dune National Park does allow dogs, but use common sense and plan ahead if you want to bring your companion.

Camping: There are several options when it comes to camping near the Great Sand Dunes National Park and they depend on what time of year you visit. Pinon Flats campground located inside the park itself is open from April-October each year. During the winter, the campground inside the park is closed so you will have to seek alternative options. You can either camp in the backcountry inside the park or visit one of the many campgrounds in the area. This page provides more information on those.

Make it a Loop: There are no official trails insides the dunes themselves, there are miles and miles of area to explore and create your own trail. While most people visit the Great Sand Dunes National Park to check out the dunes themselves, there are also several non-dune related hikes in the park. View the complete hiking map here.

Park X Factors: Wind/Sand

Sand dunes have lots of sand! Hiking in the sand is not easy, regardless of your physical fitness level or experience. I would avoid anything that looks steep because if you try to climb up it, you will form an avalanche effect in the sand and make little to no progress. Sand is not very easy to move around in, we have already covered that. When the wind is high in the park, conditions can be blinding and extremely hard to move around in. I would avoid the park if there are winds over 15 mph unless you want to get sand into EVERY and I mean EVERY, part of your body.

Hike Tip(s): Most people visit the Great Sand Dune National Park in the summer. Most people are idiots. This park, in my opinion, should be avoided in the summer at all costs. Visit in the winter or early spring. When you visit in the winter or spring, you will have far less crowds than other months, lower temperatures, which makes walking on the sand more enjoyable, and most likely snow-capped mountains in the background which adds to the experience. In addition to the time of year you visit, I would also strongly recommend visiting both during the day and at night. I re-entered the park around 8:30PM and there was literally no one else in the park, not even the rangers (pro tip: if you want to avoid paying to enter).

Best Views: Great Sand Dune National Park is basically a photographer’s wet dream. There are so many stunning angles and shots you can take on your drive into the park, inside the park, and in the dunes themselves. You will almost always see some kind of photo shoot going on if you do visit. In addition to the breathtaking photos during the day, this is a tremendous spot to shoot night photography as well. The one thing I will say, use your head when bringing camera gear and make sure you have an airtight bag. Sand in cameras = no fun.

Great Sand Dunes National Park Hike Route

This shows a typical hike from the main parking area to the “tallest” dune in the park, Hugh Dune. This dune is actually not even close to the tallest, but appears that way from the parking area.

Gear Needed

• Hiking Boots/Shoes
• Sunglasses/eye protection (when the sand starts to blow around, it is not fun)
• Protection from sun, especially in summer months
• Water / Snack
• Optional: Camera
• Optional: Tripod
• Optional: Sled/Sandboard – You can rent them in various stores around the park, more information here.

Our Trip to Great Sand Dune National Park: March 2017

The Great Sand Dune National Park is one that I have seen all over social media, websites, and heard about from friends, so I finally decided to check it out. For some reason, I was not expecting much from this park. Sure, I knew that it was beautiful, but so is seeing a new paycheck deposited in your bank account.

Jackie, Juno and I decided to head down in mid March of 2017 to see what all the hype was about. Our plan was to visit the park during the day, revisit at night and do some other hiking in the area the next day. We stopped at Crestone Brewery for lunch on the way down and got to the park around 2:00PM. From the distance, I kept saying that I expected the dunes to be bigger, but as we got closer, I could tell I was very wrong about my initial impressions. We were not even in the official Great Sand Dune National Park when I stopped to snap my first pictures of the day. The grassy plains ended and met with sand that formed these massive dunes of brown. In the distance, you could see the snow capped Sangre De Cristo mountain range forming the top border to this perfect landscape shot. It was like I was actually seeing all of these Instagram photos I had seen over the years. We paid our entrance fee, entered the park and stopped at the “main” parking area to begin the hike. For once, I had no real game plan of where to go, so we just decided to play it by ear.

The winds were fairly bad on the day we visited, something that we did not notice at first but would be a major factor later on. We left the parking area and stepped through the small patch of brush onto a football sized plain of sand. It was stunning. The sand seemed to go on forever and what looked like a small area of sand on the drive in, was now all that my eyes could see. We picked out what looked like the tallest dune and decided to head up to it. The hope was that we would be able to have the best views up there.

Per usual, I decided to be a leader and not a follower and avoid the route that everyone else seemed to be taking up there. I thought that it added so much unnecessary distance. Have I ever told you that I am an idiot? The hike up started pretty easy at first, the sand was firm and the path was straightforward. However, as we neared the summit, what seemed like a fairly mild hill, turned out to be a steep and unwieldy path.

When we tried to ascend this final ridge before the summit, it reminded me of my summit push of Kilimanjaro. Two steps forward lead to 1 step backwards. To make this stretch even more fun, the wind started to pick up which left Jackie, Juno and myself completely blinded. Juno was too stupid to realize she could turn her head away from the wind, so on top of trying to move up this constantly sliding slope of sand, I was also trying to shield her eyes with my body. Meanwhile, Jackie was on the verge of having an asthma attack. Good times.

Eventually, we reached the summit ridge (about 200 yards from the top) and the sand was in full blown hurricane mode. The wind was so bad at this point and I honestly thought Juno was trying to collect all of the sand in her eyes to bring home. She was literally staring right into the wind and I started questioning her intelligence level. Jackie was also #done with the blowing sand, so she took Juno back to a lower level to get out of the high winds. I pushed on towards the summit (I realize this sounds like a summit push to Everest, but in reality this dune was about 700 feet high) and made it up a minute or two later. The views were stunning, but so were the winds. I took out my camera for about 45 seconds to snap some shots and I am pretty sure I ruined it with the large amount of sand that seeped into the cracks and crevasses of the body and lens.

Twenty minutes later, we were down from the sand dunes and out of the wind. Even though the last three or four paragraphs sounded like hell on earth, I was still very sad to pack back into the car and move to our camping site.

The Great Sand Dunes National Park was absolutely stunning and such a unique experience. I would absolutely revisit and would recommend this hike for families and experienced hikers.

PS: I did end up revisiting the park at night and wow, was it stunning. I was the only person in the park with a full moon. I was able to snap a bunch of cool shots and enjoy the scenery without the wind. If you are able to, I would strongly recommend a night photo-shoot or hike.