Field Entry 1: Great Sand Dunes

As most of you now know, on September 17, I got married in the Great Sand Dunes at sunset.

It is a magical, incredible place. The Dune Field sits in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo mountains (which was formed by uplift and placed as the Rio Grande rift widened). But even before the Sangre de Cristo mountains uplifted, creating some of the many 14,000 foot peaks that dot Colorado, the San Juan mountains (some 75-125 miles west of the Sangre de Cristo range across the San Luis Valley) were formed through volcanic eruptions and subsequent volcanic rumblings.

Apparently, lakes then formed in the valley and subsequently dried up, leaving massive sand sheets covering the area between the mountain ranges. Wind moving from the Southwest to the Northeast across the valley carried the sand (over thousands of years) to its current shifting resting place nestled at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

(Above, looking southeast toward the Sangre de Cristo range. We've moved approximately a half mile away from the parking lot.)

(Above, at the top of High Dune, 650 feet high [yup, we climbed up 650 feet of sand!] looking northwest. Our footprints stop at the apex. So did all the prints that were there before we got there.)

(Above, looking west. That glowing orb is the sun. The mountains in the distance are the San Juans--about 85 miles away at this point.)

(Above, Just before we said our vows, drank a bottle of wine, and careened back down the dunes. Much easier down than up.)

I have to say, there was a part of me that wasn't convinced I wanted to get married after hoofing it up a hill (Josh wanted to get married at the top of a volcano), but at some point about a week before we decided to actually go do it, the Sand Dunes started feeling like the perfect place. If we could make it up the hill, one, and two, do it without strangling each other, then we'd probably be okay. This is how the thinking went. Well, we barely made it up the hill. Josh was fine. I, on the other hand, was ready to give up about every 60 steps (this is how often I had to stop). So we didn't strangle each other, and at the zenith I was awed (and sweaty, thirsty, and ready to collapse, but overwhelmed with the awe of being in such a spectacular, incredible place). I was so, unbelievably glad that Josh hadn't stopped at any of the 60-paces points, and had continued to the top, disappearing over the last crest so that I had to follow him up. (This is why I married him: the man knows how to push me past my limits and bring me to the brink of tears at the beauty of the world. He knows how to get me up a hill, past the tears.)

I don't know what else to say about this place, except that it is geologically incredible. It is visceral, spectacular. It is like being on another planet, and I plan to go back, as often as I can.

Perhaps I'll add something more academic to this post later, but for now, I think the pictures speak for themselves.