One of my lifelong travel goals is to visit as many national parks as possible. My second national park in Colorado is Great Sand Dunes NP near Alamosa. These ancestral lands belong to the Ute and the Jicarilla Apache tribes, and Blanca Peak, which was first named Sisnaanji or White Shell Mountain, is just southeast of the dunes. It is one of the four sacred mountains of the Dine’ (Navajo people).

This park features the tallest sand dunes in North America, and it’s popular to sled or surf down them. It features a diverse landscape of grasslands, wetlands, forests, alpine lakes and tundra.

The park was also named an International Dark Sky Park in 2019; it’s ideal for stargazing and moonlit night hikes. For more information on the parks visit here.