%3Amax_bytes(150000)%3Astrip_icc()%2FTAL-great-sand-dunes-national-park-SANDDUNENPBEACH0725-6b4b4bb77e734511a62ddbf92d4a3aee.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
The Tallest Sand Dunes in North America Have a Seasonal 'Beach' That Only Appears Once a Year—What to Know
Fed by snowmelt, Medano Creek—called Colorado's Natural beach—flows at the dunes' base, creating a shallow, inland beach-like playground where visitors can splash, float on tubes, and build sandcastles. The flow typically begins in late April and peaks by early June, with water depths reaching ankle to calf level—often around 20 inches—before drying out during mid-summer.
Visitors flock to the dunes when the creek is in bloom as well as for exhilarating activities such as sandboarding, sledding, and dune hiking. It's worth noting that, on warm days, sand surface temps can soar to 150 degrees, so hiking shoes or socks are a must.
The best time to visit the park is in spring and early summer, when daytime temperatures are mild and Medano Creek flows with cool, refreshing water. Since the park is designated an International Dark Sky Park, the dunes also offer remarkably clear night skies for stargazing.
Before planning your visit, be sure to check the real-time flow of Medano Creek, available from spring through fall, via an online graph that tracks the creek's volume in cubic feet per second (cfs). While the data is collected about five miles upstream from the main Dunes Parking Area, it offers a useful snapshot of current conditions and whether water levels are rising or falling. This year, flow levels aren't expected to top 20 cfs, which is a reminder to plan your visit accordingly.
The park is well-equipped for visitors, with dune-rover wheelchairs, convenient dune showers, and the Piñon Flats Campground. Families can participate in a variety of programs, including the National Park Service's Junior Ranger program and Family Archaeology Days.
For a unique place to stay near the dunes, consider Dunes Desert Camp. This eco-luxury glamping site has just two spacious safari tents, offering a private and immersive experience in nature. Guests can opt for customizable meals and activities through the camp's Dune Experiences program. For a more traditional stay, Great Sand Dunes Lodge provides a variety of standard room types, as well as campers and geodesic domes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
12 hours ago
- Forbes
Colorado: The Best State To Feel The Wild West, New Study Says
Horseback riders watch as aspiring ballet dancers frolic on a corral fence at a theater school in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, which, a new study says, is the nation's No. 1 Wild West destination. (Photo by Dean Conger/Corbis via Getty Images) Corbis via Getty Images Colorado is the No. 1 state for travelers looking for the best Wild West experience, a new study says. Three cities and one town in Colorado finished in the top 5 of Wild West destinations, according to a study done by InsureMyTrip, a travel insurance comparison website. The study analyzed 50 cities and towns in seven states that were once part of the Wild West and compared them based on various criteria, including average cost of ranch-style accommodations, number of hotels with horseback riding and number of nature and wildlife parks. Steamboat Springs, a small skiing town in Yampa Valley about 155 miles northwest of Denver, ranked first. It has 142 hotels that offer horseback riding and about 20 nature and wildlife parks in its small town, according to the study. Steamboat rated highly for ranch-style accommodations but at an expensive price: Nightly lodging averages $579 during high season. The town also has an average summer temperature of 63.9 degrees, which can be ideal, InsureMyTrip says, because horses prefer exercising in 53.6-66.2 temperatures. Tourists take a covered wagon ride in Durango, Colorado. (Photo by Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Colorado cities in the top 5 are No. 2 Durango, No. 3 Estes Park and No. 4 Colorado Springs. The non-Colorado locale in the elite five is No. 5 West Yellowstone, Montana. Besides Colorado and Montana, the study evaluated cities and towns in Arizona, California, Idaho, Texas and Wyoming. 'With more travelers looking to tap into their inner cowboy and explore the Great West, we wanted to make it easier to find the best spots for a true Wild West experience,' says Sara Boisvert, InsureMyTrip's marketing director. 'These destinations offer something special for anyone chasing that frontier feeling: horseback riding, ranch stays or just soaking in the scenery.' Durango, about 335 miles southwest of Denver and 220 miles north of Albuquerque, New Mexico, scored highly for number of lodgings with horseback riding, average cost of ranch-style accommodations and average temperature. The city is among the most affordable for lodging. It is known for its Victorian-era architecture and the scenic Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The city has been a backdrop in more than 145 Western films, including The Revenant , The Mask of Zorro and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid . Estes Park, about 65 miles north of Denver and the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, scored highly in the study because of its ranch-style accommodations, affordable lodging and 10 nature and wildlife parks. Following No. 4 Colorado Springs and No. 5 West Yellowstone in the rankings are No. 6 Tucson, Arizona; a 7th-place tie between Granby, Colorado and Harrison, Idaho, and an 8th-place tie between Douglas and Cody, Wyoming. The Garden of the Gods attracts tourists year-round to Colorado Springs, one of the best cities, according to a new study, to experience the Wild West. Gary Stoller According to a March story in Vogue , 'a renaissance' of Western fashion and a Wild West travel trend have emerged. The magazine said the emergence can be atributed to Beyoncé's Grammy-winning Cowboy Carter album, the popularity of Western melodrama Yellowstone, Netflix's Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders docuseries and other factors. 'Dubbed cowboy-core, an increasing number of travelers are saddling up to visit destinations where 10-gallon hats are as common as caps and where ranches and rodeos reign,' the Vogue story said.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
JetBlue posts smaller-than-expected loss as U.S. demand recovers
(Reuters) -JetBlue Airways on Tuesday posted an adjusted loss for the second quarter that was smaller than Wall Street expectations, helped by cost cutting measures and recovering demand for travel in the U.S. Over the past month, larger peers Delta and United have signaled that bookings are starting to stabilize, though at lower-than-expected levels, pointing to an uneven recovery. In April, JetBlue joined several major airlines in pulling its 2025 financial forecast, citing uncertainty tied to the Trump administration's sweeping tariff policies and federal spending cuts that weighed on consumer travel. "Demand for air travel improved as the quarter progressed, resulting in significant strength for bookings within 14-days of travel, as well as for peak travel periods," said Marty St. George, JetBlue's president, adding that the momentum continued into July. However, the carrier said it expects third-quarter revenue per available seat mile (RASM), an industry metric commonly known as unit revenue and a proxy for pricing power, to decline between 2% and 6%. It also renistated its 2025 unit cost forecast and expects it to rise between 5% and 7%. The carrier reported an adjusted loss of 16 cents per share for the quarter ended June 30, compared to analysts' estimate of a loss of 33 cents apiece. Operating revenue was $2.18 billion. Analysts, on average, were expecting $2.28 billion, as per data compiled by LSEG. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
Florida history: The rough, bumpy road that became Dixie Highway, spawning modern tourism
Editor's note: This story by former staff writer Barbara Marshall originally ran Jan. 14, 2016. It has been edited for updating, length and clarity. One hundred and 10 years ago, Dixie Highway began to spawn today's tourism industry. Beginning in 1915 and for decades afterward, "The Dixie" was the artery that delivered the tourists who became residents, transforming America's last frontier into a balmy, palmy middle-class paradise. In towns such as West Palm Beach, Dixie was the main drag where courthouses and businesses were built. Dixie spawned theme motels, juice stands and wacky roadside attractions. A rough, rutted road For intrepid tourists and adventurers at the dawn of the Automobile Age, a trip south on "The Dixie" was a grueling, often dangerous journey. Much of the road was a rutted sand track through Florida's piney woods and coastal scrub. It could take 10 days to two weeks to drive on a Tin Lizzie's narrow tires from Chicago to Miami. Coming into Palm Beach County, Dixie followed the dry ridge that Flagler's railroad crews had surveyed two decades earlier. "The FEC had taken the high ground, so basically they had whatever was left," said Lake Park historian L.J. Parker. "When they came to a lake or a sinkhole, they moved the road to the other side of the tracks." Today, the road is called Dixie Highway only in certain areas such as downtown West Palm Beach. Elsewhere, it has names such as Evergreen and Poinsettia avenues in northern West Palm; President Barack Obama Highway in Riviera Beach; and Old Dixie Highway in Lake Park and Delray Beach. Despite these perils, Dixie Highway modernized the South by providing its first good farm-to-market roads while simultaneously creating the dream of a winter Florida vacation, said historian Tammy Ingram. "Auto tourism opened up Florida to middle class tourism. You didn't need a train depot anymore," said Ingram, author of "Dixie Highway: Road Building and the Making of the Modern South." The genius behind Dixie Highway Credit goes to Carl Fisher, founder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and an early automobile enthusiast. He helped form the Dixie Highway Association in 1914 to create a reliable route to get Midwesterners down to his latest project: a mangrove swamp he was busy transforming into Miami Beach. Fisher's idea was to cobble together the country's existing north-south roads and improve them, creating an interstate highway. (He'd done the same thing earlier with his transcontinental Lincoln Highway, connecting New York to San Francisco.) His genius was persuading states and cities to tax themselves into paying for improving those existing roads. 'Not a trip for faint of heart' When it officially opened in the fall of 1915, the road came south via two meandering, gerrymandered routes. The eastern route started in Detroit and went through Jacksonville and down the Atlantic coast. The western route left Chicago, connecting Tallahassee with Orlando then continuing down the Gulf coast. Eventually, the combined Dixie Highway routes stretched 5,786 miles across 10 states from the Canadian border at Sault Sainte Marie in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to Miami on Biscayne Bay. "Before that, you had to find your own way down without maps or road signs," said Susan Gillis, curator at the Boca Raton Historical Society. Florida's torrential downpours were also big trouble for those early motorists. Yet, thousands came and stayed, starting Florida's 1920s land boom. "It was very treacherous, but that was part of the appeal," said Ingram. "It was not a trip for the faint of heart." "You left early and timed it so you were hitting major towns to eat lunch, get gas, have a place to stay overnight. You carried supplies including extra tires and gas. Wealthy people would have a driver and mechanic go with them." By 1920, Motor Travel magazine wrote that Florida "no longer lay beyond arduous and impassable sands … just around the corner from Stygian cypress swamps …" But many of those who followed Dixie to the boom did a U-turn during the bust that began in 1926. By May of 1928, Boca Raton was so desperate for tourists it erected a painted plywood camel over the road to attract Shriners headed to a national convention in Miami. A sign advertised that its new town hall (now the city's history museum) had restrooms. A month later during a Miami Elks convention, said Gillis, the city added antlers to transform the camel into an elk. Today, most of what remains of Dixie's original route through Palm Beach is Old Dixie, a workingman's road lined with thrift shops and car repair places. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida history: Creation of Dixie Highway in the early 20th century Solve the daily Crossword
