Katie's Log

Fall...

Today is a beautiful day in Chicago. It is cool, dry, and sunny. A perfect late summer day. Days like this are great and they remind me that my favorite season is on the way. I like just about everything about fall. The warm days and cool nights are great. I like fall attire - sweaters and jeans, but no coat. I like watching football games. The yellows, oranges, and reds in the landscape are beautiful. Fall also means a trip to the apple orchard to enjoy crisp apples, apple pie, and apple donuts. It would be nice if fall lasted all year, but I guess it wouldn't be as special if it did.

More on Colorado - Camping and Hiking

Of course, it rained. We've had bad luck with rain and camping this year. We spent a week backpacking on Isle Royale in July and it rained every day but one. Fortunately, the rain didn't hinder us much in Colorado.

We set aside the second day of our trip for a day hike in the Sangre de Cristos. We decided to try the North Crestone Creek trail. We wanted to get an early start so we thought it would be best to camp near the trailhead the night before. There is a campground at the trailhead, so after spending the day at Great Sand Dunes we headed to the campground.

The North Crestone Creek campground is a "drive up" campground where the campsites are situated just off the road so that you can park your car at your site. The sites are lined up along the creek for which the campground and trail are named, starting at the trailhead. We took site #9 (out of 13). This campground was probably the nicest "drive up" campground that we've been to. The sites were spacious and there was ample room between sites. The water that rushes through North Crestone creek made for nice white noise for sleeping.

The nice sound of the rushing water of the creek was interrupted several times during the night by heavy rain. We planned to wake up at 5:30 to clean up our camp and be on the trail by about 6:30, but one of the downpours was in progress so we went back to sleep. We woke up at 7:00 and it had stopped raining. We sat in the tent for about 45 minutes, with few peeks outside, expecting more rain. None came and the skies didn't look too threatening so we decided to break camp. After eating a quick breakfast, we shook as much water off the fly and the tent as we could, tossed them in the car, and drove up the road, past the other campsites, to the trailhead.

The trail runs for 3 miles along North Crestone Creek through aspen forest and then forks into three trails. The trail started out wide and gentle, but it narrowed as it started to switchback above the creek. It was pretty cloudy, but we still had some nice views of the San Luis valley below the clouds.

Hiking this trail was hard work for me. I am in good shape - at leat at sea level. I run 20-25 miles a week at home in Chicago. However, I always seem to have trouble with altitude the first few days I am in the mountains. It was only our second full day in Colorado, so I think my body wasn't fully adjusted yet. Altitude never bothers my husband, so he let me take the lead so that he didn't get too far ahead of me.

When we got to the fork we opted to follow the Middle Fork trail toward Comanche Pass. The Middle Fork trail was shorter than the other two options, but the altitude gain was greater. Not long after we started on the Middle Fork, the trees started to thin out and the terrain got rockier. We stopped in a meadow for a quick snack, and then got back on the trail. At that point we were above the treeline. We hiked on toward Comanche Pass over rocky switchbacks. Comanche Pass was nearly covered by clouds so we turned around just short of it and headed back towards the fork. When we got to the fork, we decided that it would be best to head back towards trailhead. We didn't want to get stuck in a rainstorm, and I was tired.

Our Falcon guide says that the trail we hiked is pretty popular, but we didn't see any other hikers until we were about a mile from the trailhead on the way out (at 12:30). I guess that was because it was a Thursday and the weather was questionable. Overall it was a nice hike and it would have been better if I was more acclimated to the altitude.

Great Sand Dunes

Last week my husband and I traveled to south central Colorado. One of the highlights of our trip was our visit to Great Sand Dunes National Monument. The Great Sand Dunes - the tallest sand dunes in North America - were spectacular.

The Great Sand Dunes lie in the San Luis Valley at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The San Luis Valley is a dry valley formed by the San Juan Mountains on the west and the Sangre de Cristos on the east. The dunes, which reach heights of 750 feet, were formed by winds that carry sand across the valley.

The best way to explore the Great Sand Dunes is to hike them. Visitors to Great Sand Dunes are free to hike any area of the dunes that they wish. We hiked up and over several sets of dunes until we reached the crest of one of the highest dunes. From there we had a fabulous view of the Sangre de Cristos and the valley below. Hiking the dunes was a also great workout. Climbing the dunes wasn't easy, especially since they are at an altitude of about 8000 feet.

The Great Sand Dunes didn't appear to support much life. We saw a few insects, some grasses, a plant called scrufpea, and prairie sunflowers. The green plants provided a nice contrast against the sand.

The dunes were also a lot of fun to photograph. I love to make photographs patterns and curves and the Great Sand Dunes provide an almost limitless supply. Some of my favorite subjects were the smooth, sweeping curves of dune crests, wind-blown ripples of sand, and clumps of prairie sunflowers. The Sangre de Cristo Mountains also provided a great backdrop for wider landscape shots.

The Great Sand Dunes are constantly changing. Wind adds new sand to the dunes all the time. In addition, wind and rain create new patterns on the surface of the dunes each day. The next time I visit the dunes I'm sure that I will find plenty of new things to explore. Here are a few photos from the trip.

- Great Sand Dunes from the San Luis Valley

- Dune crest

- Prarie sunflowers growing in sand

- View from the top of the dunes

- My husband, Tom, climbing a dune