The great sand dunes, America's youngest national park! Now this is getting too coincidental because you'll never guess what - it's on fire!! Luckily this time before we arrived so no blame can be apportioned to us.
After a little hike up a hill, and wading through a gorge you get to see a hidden waterfall called 'Zapata Falls'. Something tragic happened here! This picture of us at the falls could well have been the last ever with our camera, because after the guy took this picture he dropped our camera, it bounced off a stone and ended up in the water. When I picked it out, it was dead and remained that way despite all attempts to dry it and revive it. So you can imagine how cheesed off we were. So we had tea, had a fire and try to cheer ourselves up - and then, totally out of the blue, the old camera did a Lazarus, it came back to life and I'm happy to say works perfectly again. What a relief, otherwise the blog would have ended right now!
A walk to the top of the sand dunes - not easy climbing sand hills I can tell you!
Just to give you some idea of the size of these things - those are people down there.
The traditional 'long arm' shot from the top of the biggest sand dune, 650ft.
Elvis demonstrating the 'quick' way down. She still has sand in her ears!
The biggest dune - we were at the top of this dune.
Here is the ranger explaining to everyone about the fire. The forest is within the park boundary and is about 5 miles away from us. The authorities have changed their policy on fires these days. Once they would have tried to put the fire out, but in fact the best thing to do is to let it burn. That way, dead trees and pines are burned away and allow new trees to come through. If fires are not allowed to burn regularly, dangerous amounts of fuel build up on the forest floor which usually means everything is burned away, if fires are allowed to occur naturally, usually there isn't enough fuel on the floor to kill the big trees. By the way, this fire was started by a lightening strike on the 5th June.
We've obtained some backcountry passes again, so we're off for a hike into the sand dunes and a night camping on the sand under the stars - or that's what we thought!!
Strangely, the sand dunes are surrounded by water - which is odd for a desert environment. The whole arrangement is quite weired because the sand should really blow away, but a combination of the mountains at the back and the water actually re-circulates the sand and deposits it - a constant recycle kind of thingy!
So here we are - camping on the dunes - anyone think the 'clear, starry sky' looks a little bit on fire? It was an interesting night to say the least, quite windy and very interesting 'firework' display from the nearby forest!
No more cups of tea - cos there isn't another blog to answer the questions!
We have really enjoyed our eight weeks through the national parks of Nevada, California, Arizona and Colorado. Thanks for joining in. Until the next time - chow for now, K&S xxx
2 comments:
I'm so sorry to hear that your trip is ending so soon. Thanks once again for traveling and allowing me to join in the COT fun. Take care both of you, The Outsourcer.
"Phew! Thank goodness those two have gone home!" That's the collective quote from all the park rangers in a four state area! "Right lads, get working on putting that arch back up and send out fire engines to all points that they were last spotted!"
I'm guessing you're arriving home just about....now. I wonder if you're thinking of the words from the Roger Whitaker song, "...far away from your land of endless sunshine, to my land full of cloudy skies and gales." However, to be fair, rain is lashing at the rv sideways today - it's a "Well, I'll go to Ryton" day.
I know it'll be great to reunite with family and friends and really great to go back to w.., w.., w... No, I just won't say it.
Great talking to you in the last couple of days and Happy Birthday tomorrow, Pyni!
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