The day we visited was chilly and drizzly, but the dunes were still spectacular to see. We tried sledding, and some areas were sticky and slow, but we did get a couple of good runs in on a steeper area. It is surprisingly exhausting to climb up the dunes, but worth the effort for great views of the area. A gem of a park!
This is a National Park that offers views and exercise. This one is off the beaten path, nestled against 14000 feet mountains. It is about 15 miles off the main road, and 35 miles from the nearest larger town. This site offers a vast area to hike up the sand dunes, either follow the crowd or break off on your own. Some shops offer sand sled and boards to travel down the slopes. We have been a few times, March/April is cooler and windy, mid summer is HOT. You can wear shoes or walk barefoot, in summer the sand tends to burn more. Take plenty of water.....Parking is okay, sometimes crowded, but most visitors average 2-3 hours here and depart. But there are other trails and hiking areas within the park that has nothing to do with the dunes.
Love this place so much I purchased my own property to build a cabin. The park can be very hot in June and July months, so I would suggest early morning trip getting there. Children can play in the little shallow creek sand bottom at the base of the monsterous Sand Dooms. There are two places that rent sand sleds to coast down the Dooms like as if it was mountains of snow. In the near by town of Alamosa CO there are a few stores that rents sand boards and sand sleds and inside the park there is another place that does too. We’re taking our grand kids there again this summer to enjoy this beautiful place. Creede is another short trip from the Sand Dooms very interesting and beautiful silver mining town back in its early days driving loop trail mining tours fishing. Fun trip for entire family
We stopped here on a quick trip with the family and the kids (3 and 6) had a great time playing in the sand and trying to make sand castles. Even though the air temperature when we visited was in the 40's, the sand was quite warm with the sun out. The scenery is incredible and we saw some wildlife on our visit. This is an easy place to get to and recommend spending a couple of hours to climb the dunes and stop at the visitor center.
We have always wanted to visit this park, and finally got the chance. The park website was very helpful in preparing for our trip! We decided to go sand sledding, and pre-booked our rental sleds ahead of time. While the sledding didn't go so well - my husband weighed too much, and our daughter weighed too little - we still enjoyed the experience! We were very grateful to have driven our JEEP so that we could go to a less traveled, and less hectic part of the park away from the crowds.
We were able to spend a few hours here on a recent trip to Colorado. We had our dog with us and staff were very friendly toward him. Nice gift shop/visitor center with lots of info. We used to be frequent visitors when we lived in the area but it had been a decade since our last visit. It was crowded on our Sunday visit but we were able to find parking places without too much trouble. The dunes are great to walk around on and the surrounding areas are beautiful.
