Alamosa—Mosca—Great Sand Dunes National Monument; 38 miles, State 17, State 150.

Graveled road between Alamosa and Mosca; dirt between Mosca and the Dunes.

Limited accommodations at Mosca; campground 0.5 miles south of the Dunes. A bathing suit is the best costume for sand skiing, but the wearer should guard against sunburn.    

The Great Sand Dunes, established as a national monument by President Hoover in 1932, cover an area of 80 square miles along the western base of the Sangre de Cristo Range, between Mosca Pass on the south and the Crestone Needles on the north. Rising more than 1,500 feet, these changing mounds are large enough to cover all but the largest of cities and their highest buildings. Many legends and superstitions are associated with the region.

In ALAMOSA, 0 miles (7,500 alt., 5,107 pop.), State 17 branches north from US 160 (see Tour 11b).

MOSCA (Sp. fly), 13.7 miles (7,562 alt., 75 pop.), was named for Mosca Pass.

At 14.5 miles is (R) the junction with State 150, which the route follows east across desolate alkali-spotted prairie country. The view includes the steep wall of the SANGRE DE CRISTO RANGE, with the great bulk of SIERRA BLANCA PEAK (14,363 alt.) its most prominent feature. Curving northeastward the road reaches a campground, 38 miles, in a cottonwood grove at the foot of the GREAT SAND DUNES—naked, barren, and mysterious, encroaching upon the mountains beyond.

The dunes rise so abruptly and so surprisingly in this corner of the San Luis Valley that they seem to have been scooped up by a giant's hand. One explanation of their presence is that the sands once constituted the bed of a great inland sea and were blown by the prevailing winds against the western wall of the Sangre de Cristos, where they piled higher and higher through the ages. Others ascribe them to the wear and tear on the sandstone of the so-called Santa Fe formation in this region, augmented by sand blown in from the valley.

The sand of the dunes, for the most part, is of extremely fine grain. Under a magnifying glass the particles appear white, red, pink, green, gray, and of mixed hues, which accounts for the dunes' remarkable coloring. To a hiker on the smooth slopes, the sand masses are tawny, but from a distance—they are visible for 70 miles—the colors change constantly with the light; in the glare of the sun they are creamy white, but shadows bring out chocolate and purple tones, and the setting sun paints them a brilliant red. By moonlight, the shadowed and whispering ridges present a cold, eerie, and forbidding appearance; on such nights the legends of the dunes are told anew, in appropriate setting. The only vegetation on the dunes are long coarse grasses and sunflowers that grow in the shallows between hillocks.

At the end of the road a river runs down from the base of the mountains at certain seasons of the year, skirting the dunes, only to sink suddenly from view in a dry expanse. A few miles to the west the river reappears at INDIAN SPRINGS, once a water hole for game. When the river is dry, no bed marks its course.

The best view of the dunes is obtained by walking across a half mile of sandy waste and climbing upward along the slopes; it is not advisable, however, to penetrate far into them alone, or without water, as there is danger of becoming lost. The dunes are never static; a constant breeze stirs the surface, and the hiker may be walking through an ankle-deep sandstorm while his head is in clear air. When the wind is blowing strong, or sliding occurs on the steep lee sides of the dunes, weird moaning sounds are heard. When persons slide down the long slopes between the hummocks, a deep rumbling sound sometimes reverberates through the sand and is audible a quarter of a mile away. Informal skiing tournaments are held on the slopes; sweeping down from one of the higher crests provides a thrill said to be unsurpassed by the snow sport. During electrical storms the air above the dunes becomes so charged that a man's hair "stands on end."

The first white men to look upon the Great Sand Dunes undoubtedly were Spanish explorers who came northward up the Rio Grande. Lieutenant Zebulon Pike marveled when he crossed the Sangre de Cristos and came upon the sea of sand in 1807. Travelers, artists, geologists, and naturalists from many countries have since viewed this phenomenon. As the ridges and summits shift under constant wind pressure, skeletons of Indians and perhaps of whites have been exposed. That this place held a fascination for the Indians is proved by the number of arrowheads and other artifacts found in the vicinity.

One of the strangest legends about the dunes is that of the web-footed horses. On bright moonlight nights, or just before sunrise, so it is said, large horses can be seen against the horizon, manes blowing in the wind, heads uplifted in challenge. In place of hoofs, they have great webbed feet that enable them to race over the sands with ease. There is some truth in this, for bands of wild horses do roam the edges of the dunes. They have developed broad hoofs and usually are able to outdistance ordinary steeds in racing across the sands. The only other animals that frequent the dunes are coyotes, foxes, and an occasional skunk.

Other stories concern the mysterious disappearance of sheepherders and their flocks, presumably in the trackless wastes of the ever-shifting hills. Many of these disappearances can be explained by the fact that sheepherders formerly used Mosca Pass, which crosses the high Sangre de Cristos above the dunes, in taking their flocks to summer pasture. No doubt many flocks were sold or kept permanently on the other side of the mountains, and thus "were never seen again." One spring, Peter Hansen, an early rancher in the San Luis Valley, ordered his herders to different parts of the range. The most difficult assignment, that of moving sheep past the dunes, was given to an old Mexican herder who set out with 1,000 sheep and a pack train. Two men accompanied him to the foot of Mosca Pass, from which point he went on alone. When weeks had passed with no word of him, Hansen instituted a search. As far as could be determined, the Mexican never reached the other side of the pass, and nothing was ever heard of him.

At the time the San Luis Valley was being settled, rough and dangerous Mosca Pass was much used as a freight route. A long wagon train reached the bottom of the pass one night and halted at the edge of the dunes. The River of the Dunes, apparently shallow, was flowing smoothly across the waste, and the wagons were drawn up together beside it; the mules hobbled and turned out to graze, and the teamsters rolled up in their blankets a short distance away. Next morning both mules and wagons had vanished, and were never found. It is probable that the train dropped into quicksands that occasionally form here, but many persons still credit the disappearance to the supernatural.

Told and retold around campfires is the story of the Mystery Family of the Dunes. Years ago the Martinez family—father, mother, and a small son—lived on a homestead near the sands. They were not friendly with their neighbors, and little was known of them until one day the boy, dazed and unable to speak, stumbled into a ranch house some miles from his home. Neighbors found the mother and father dead in their cabin, but the cause of their death could not be ascertained. The boy refused to say a word about the tragedy. A farmer provided a home for the lad, who took a hand tending sheep. When he was out one day, a dust storm arose. When he did not return, the farmer and his men went in search of him. They tracked the boy and his flock to the edge of the dunes, where the trail was lost. The last member of the Mystery Family had vanished.