![]() Coloradans realized their precious natural resource was in danger of being exploited out of existence, so a local women’s group lobbied the federal government for protection. While there may not have been much vegetation, these dunes were rife with potential for other interests: In the 1920s, miners discovered gold in them, and companies began extracting sand to make cement. Millennia of human habitation passed, and more recently, the Ute and Jicarilla Apache moved in, giving the dunes some colorful names: The Ute called them sowapopheuveha, or “the land that moves back and forth,” while the Apache went with sei-anyedi, or “it goes up and down.”And in 1807, when Zebulon Pike came to explore the land secured in the recent Louisiana Purchase, he wrote of the dunes: “Their appearance was exactly that of the sea in a storm, except as to color, not the least sign of vegetation existing thereon.” ![]() Nomadic hunters arrived some 11,000 years ago to hunt the mammoth and bison that were then plentiful in these parts. But why are the dunes here? About 440,000 years ago, an immense body of water called Lake Alamosa dried up suddenly, and winds blew the sand that was left behind toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where it began piling up higher and higher. This is Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve (GSDNPAP), where the namesake attractions sprawl across 30 square miles, surrounded by a diverse array of other protected ecosystems, including forests, alpine lakes, grasslands, wetlands and even tundra. Are they the size of a house? A mountain? Behold: the tallest sand dunes in North America, reaching 750 feet, roughly the height of the Golden Gate Bridge. From this distance, it’s nearly impossible to gauge their immensity. And then the topography suddenly shifts once again as gargantuan piles of sand that look straight out of the Sahara Desert appear on the horizon. Colorado’s snowcapped peaks give way to the wide-open, high-desert landscape of the San Luis Valley as you drive south from Denver.
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