Whatever season you visit this national park, a must-do activity is to hike up to the top of a dune. The sand is velvety soft, but still takes a little effort to climb. An easy way to hike up to the top of a dune is to switchback your way up. Once you are at the top, following the dune ridge is the easiest way to continue onward, and from the ridge top, you have a broad view around the park.

There's a large parking area just before taking the Medano Pass Primitive Road in Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. From there, you can look southwest beyond the dunefield and across the broad San Luis Valley toward the distant San Juan Mountains.

If you are interested in the geology of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, a great place to view the overall geologic system of the park is from San Luis Lakes State Wildlife Area just off of Lane 6 N, almost halfway between the community of Mosca and the turnoff onto Colorado State Highway 150 toward the park. From this vantage point, you can see all four primary components of the Great Sand Dunes geological system: mountain watershed, dunefield, sand sheet, and sabkha.

What do you see in this image? A broad valley covered in scrub brush with a lone vehicle on a stretch of highway to the left of the shot, and rugged, snowcapped mountains to the right.

Hike to the top of any sand dune within this national park and you've got a great view of the land below and beyond. In this image, you see the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east, with the flat, snow-covered flat expanse of land below where Medano Creek will flow during spring and summer. Look closely enough and you might even be able to see the trail in the snow created by hikers leaving the parking area and heading toward the dunefield.

There are four primary components to the Great Sand Dunes geological system: mountain watershed, dunefield, sand sheet, and sabkha. To read more about this, click here.

How many of you have hiked the dunes at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve and noticed black patches or black ripples in the otherwise beige palette of the soft sand? What you are seeing are black magnetite grains in the sand. Magnetite is magnetic, and if you place a magnet on the sand, you'll pick up clumps of black magnetite grains. For real, and not an April Fool's joke! Cool, right?

On a clear, sunny day when 14,410-feet-tall Mount Rainier may be seen from miles away, the locals will tell you "The Mountain is out, today."

"Majestic figures of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, surrounded by the beauty of the Black Hills of South Dakota, tell the story of the birth, growth, development and preservation of this country. From the history of the first inhabitants to the diversity of America today, Mount Rushmore brings visitors face to face with the rich heritage we all share."

The 1,300-mile Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail is not a single hiking trail but rather, a route traveled by Mormons who fled Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Great Salt Lake Valley in 1846-1847. Along this route you can see some amazing landscapes while learning about this route and the hardy people who traveled it.