Just a preview, more photos to come.

Two more views of Great Sand Dunes NP, this time from the dunes. I know it is difficult to get a sense of the scale, but look closely in the photo below and you’ll find a couple of clues… (click to enlarge).

Last rays of sun chase the glowing blue of the moutain deep in the valley protected by bare trees.

Somewhere along Huckelberry Point’s trail in the Catkills you can find this wonder of Mother Nature. Slick, isn’t it?

It was long due, the trip turned into an adventure. Feb 22nd, morning, all is white looking through the window of my hotel. Couple inches already covering the car, the road, the town. It is beautiful out there, but news only forecast more snow in the next two days for up to 20in snowfall. I have to get out of here.

A couple of hours later and too many visits to the weather channel website I gain the courage to drive out of Alamosa, CO towards Tres Piedras, NM. 60 miles (100 km) through snowy and stormy route US 285, patiently driving through La Jara (mile 16) and Antonito (mile 29), waypoints where my friend Ernesto expected updates (thanks buddy). After Tres Piedras, the drive was a (cold) breeze to Santa Fe.

In the end, scary at first, it wasn’t that bad, though the 4×4 car and good tires helped, at least in my mind.

A couple more photos with details of the “frozen” car:

Extra ice breaks for the front wheels

Radial frozen spikes

That’s it. It’s freezing and it’s windy in Great Sand Dunes National Park. Hiking half day through the dunes have left me with many pictures and thousands or millions of tiny little grains of sand. Inadvertently they have gone into the most inconspicuous places of my equipement, my clothes and myself. I heard a ranger yesterday in Mesa Verde making a joke about the Colorado Plateau’s sand and its inhabitant’s teeth. Didn’t get it. Did now! The sun has only appeared momentarily all day and it doesn’t look it is going to be anything different for sunset, only a few minutes away. Go to my car, remove as much sand as possible and start driving out to the hotel. It is now, just short of the park’s exit when an elk herd shows up as the sun displaces the clouds and my camera clicks.