The Great Sand Dunes

Trapped by streams and wind the Great Sand Dunes have been up against the Sangre de Cristo (blood of Christ) mountains for 10s of thousands of years.

Thursday 16th July 2009-07-15
Up to watch the shadows march across the plains to the dunes. Amazing sight. At the dunes I set up the timelapse for sunrise on the dunes. Conditions *PERFECT* for flying the plane. Got it out for long shadows on the dunes only to find the video RX had a broken wire! AG! Tried to jury rig it but failed. Soldered it back at the car. Quick n dirty, but functional. However I had lost the long shadows on the dunes. The water is apparently turned off once per year. So the stream was gone, but it was just coming back. After a fantastic flight I set up the timelapse to get the stream flowing down the virgin sand. Met an American who was interested in the timelapse. Long chat with him. Also a swiss guy who had REALLY traveled. Across the saharra, south America n Australia. He liked the planes and timelapse too. Packed up and moved on before midday. Some surge flow in the stream but not much. In alomosa tried to find the starbux, but no wifi. Mcdonalds had free wifi though. Thats where I am now. Rendering flaming george and dinosaur. Wifi was real patchy. Managed in the end to upload Flaming gorge, finished dinosaur but couldnt upload. Back to the car without a plan. In the end I decided onto Durango then down to Shiprock for dawn. Got over to Durango past sunset, found a starbux and uploaded Dinosaur. It was in the middle of town though. Found an albersons and kipped in the car park overnight. Lots of young people here. People skateboarding down the road etc. They even set up a sort of makeshift skate park in the Albertsons carpark. Crowds always make you feel a little nervous when you are traveling alone.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• great
• sand
• dunes
• national
• park
• usa
• colorado
• sangre
• de
• cristo
• travel
• mountains
• beautiful
• canyon
• fantastic
• scenery
• river
• beautyintheuniverse

[kenotube]

It's been calculated that there are about 100 stars for every grain of sand on earth in the known universe. When you look at just one sand dune, it absolutely boggles the mind. The universe is absolutely amazing.

[christo930]

It's absolutely amazing that how many people view a beautiful sunset and see absolute proof of a god. I can't tell you how many people have responded to my atheism with "haven't you ever seen a beautiful sunset?" as if it were self evident that the only possible cause for a sunset is a god.

[iscay666]

@1971SuperLead I know I nearly spat the coffee I was drinking on the keyboard when I saw it! The audacity of a possible grammatical error, the horror of it all!

[1971SuperLead]

@iscay666 Oh, thank God! I was horrified that someone made a grammatical error.

[iscay666]

@1971SuperLead He was doing a Lol cat kinda thing with the toad. Get the joke it was intentional.

[1971SuperLead]

"eaten" not "eated".

[MrWajax]

I really like this video! Hopefully during the summer I'll be able to go on a similar trip. This video gets a thumbs up and is going in my favorites.

[kris1991]

great vid!

[Tapecutter59]

Love the music.

[gobblox38]

i was there in the afternoon of the 13th. we didn't spend to much time because our goal was to get to pagosa springs that same day.  (we started in colorado springs).