The Great Sand Dune National Park

One of the pluses of our visit north is to visit the Great Sand Dune National Park, to the North East of Alamosa. We had figured that we could go and look at the dunes and then go back in a couple of hours, as we could easily see them from out trailer as a beigey patch of ground at the foot of the mountains. The weather had deteriorated and the wind was quite strong. As Sally and I were just getting out of our trailer a sudden gust turned into a vortex, which is a mini tornado, blew up a load of sand all over us. I had to hold on to Sally and on to the trailer as we literally stopped ourselves from being blown away. When the vortex passed we spent some time brushing sand from our clothes and our hair, not a particularly pleasant experience.
It took the best part of an hour just to drive there. Of course the weather didn't help, it was very stormy, with snow storms blowing across the broad plain. As we drove the van was buffeted by the wind and we were enveloped in snow flurries. However on arrival the sun came out for a while and everything looked fine. As we approached, the true scale of the dunes became apparent. At the visitor center we learned that the dunes we could see were up to 650ft high, rising to 750ft further into the dunes. We took some time to explore the edge of the dunes, appreciating their beauty, but not wising to climb 650 feet of sand dune. We had our lunch then explored some more, I took a walk across the flat sand to the base of the dunes (about 400 yards away). We could see that the weather was closing in again , so we took to the car and explored some of the land around the dunes. At this point it started snowing again, covering the dunes with a thin layer of snow. The effect was remarkable as the snow outlined the dunes, like gauche on a painting. Quite surreal in its effect. We just sat amazed and watched as the scenery changed before our eyes. When the snow storm had cleared the snow melted very rapidly, returning the dunes to their original sandy colour.
We left feeling once more that America can produce some of the most amazing and stunning scenery.
The reason for the sand dunes being there and how they were made is a fascinating story, which can be read about better than I can tell it. See Wiki