Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado

It makes sense that the US National Park Service named this park for its 750-foot (and higher) sand dunes. The dunes are an unexpected feature of Colorado’s topography. But the towering hills of sand are part of a patchwork landscape that includes conifer forests, alpine lakes and wetlands. The 85,000-acre park and preserve even encompasses stretches of tundra at the higher elevations, where it edges up against the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.