Big Sand Box

We tried again to cross the Rockies.  This time we took Monarch Pass.  This pass has an elevation of 11,312 ft and has an average grade of 7%.  It was scary at times, since some parts do not have guard rails.  However, we made it to the top of the mountain without any issues and then traveled to the bottom of the mountain without issues.

After traversing the Monarch Pass, we decided to visit a national park that was still on our bucket list to visit.  We drove to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. The park contains the tallest sand dunes in North America.  The largest dune rises to a maximum height of 750 feet.  The dunes cover an area of about 30 sq mi and are estimated to contain over 1.2 cubic miles of sand.  Sandboarding and sandsledding are very popular on the dunes.  I walked on the smaller dunes, but I'm not in good enough shape to walk to the higher dunes.  However, there were many on the higher dunes and they were having a lot of fun sledding to the bottom.

Our atlas has green dots for scenic roads, so when we left the National Park we headed towards roads with green dots.  We ended up following the Santa Fe Trail road.  The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico.  It has a lot of history, but I won't cover that in this blog.  We are spending the night in La Junta, Colorado.  Tomorrow we will be heading east.

Driving through Monarch Pass

Cool truck to remove snow on Monarch Pass

At the top of Monarch Pass

You can see some smoke from forest fires in the distance

Sandsledding down the dune

It is hard to see them, but there are people at the top of these dunes.