Great Sand Dunes National Park – Pinyon Flats Campground Review

To read a brief 2016 update post, see this link.

Camping at the Sand Dunes is one of my most favorite things in the universe.  It is so beautiful and interesting, I’d rather be there than a warm tropical beach.  (People generally don’t agree with me on this sentiment, so don’t expect to love it as much as I do…but try real hard.  Cause it’s the best.)  This year was our third trip, and the second trip where we took additional family members along (making good use of that extra room in our Kingdom 6 tent)!  There are some backpacking options within the park that we might try in future years, but for now we’ve stayed in the Pinyon Flats campground in the park.

Pros:  Ummm…everything?  Seriously, I just love this place so it’s hard for me to write a review because I mostly just want to draw stick figures of me in the campground with hearts around it.  The way the girl in that “I love cats” video feels about cats is how I feel about the sand dunes.  I just want to hug all of it on a rainbow.  But…in the interest of a review…here are some pros.  VIEWS FOR DAYS.  There’s the creek, the dunes, the mountains…snow, sand, water…pretty much if you like looking at a particular thing, you can find it here.  The kids can play in the creek and sled on the dunes (renting one of the $20 a day (!!!!!!) sleds at the general store near the park entrance is worth the cost–we tried sleds from home and they suck).  If you go early in the season (particularly arriving on a Friday) and use the beach access from the campground instead of the main parking lot, you can have the dunes to yourselves and it feels absolutely ridiculous to enjoy that kind of beauty all by yourself.

Cons:  (Written defensively and grudgingly.  THIS IS MY FAVORITE PLACE, PEOPLE.)  It’s a National Park campground versus a State Park campground, so the facilities aren’t as fancy as you’ll find at a State Park–no showers, for example.  The reservation campsite loop is shaded, but the sites in general don’t have the sweeping views of the first-come-first-serve loop.  These are mixed campsites, so expect plenty of RVs for neighbors.  (Paradoxically we’ve actually noticed that the better the weather and later in May we’ve visited, the more the RVs–the worse the weather, the more tent campers.)  If you’re there in the summer or later spring than we visit, expect it to be hot.  The exposed campsites get a little roasty on a nice day, which is why the ranger told me the shady loop is the reservation loop.  If you don’t like a hot tent, grab a shady site.  It’s a high altitude desert, so expect it to be chilly.  The first year we camped there the first night had a low of 17 degrees.  This year it snowed while we had breakfast.  It happens.  If you’re not really adventure people, you might not love that.  Packing is tricky because you’re packing for both warm beach and cold-as-snow-temps.  Well worth it, though!

Campsite recommendations:  The best views are in the first-come-first serve loop, so we show up early and take the best site we can find.  The last two years we’ve been lucky to stay in site 22, which juts out away from the campground for spectacular views.  They put up a fence around it this year to prevent you from putting tent/chairs into the brush surrounding the site which makes it a bit less picturesque, but it’s still a great site.  On my list of sites to stay at in the reservation loop, 53 and 54 are sheltered by trees and near some beautiful aspen (54 had a really pretty stream running next to it [though this might be unique to all the rain we had this year]), and 66 and 67 have nice views of the dunes (with my personal preference being for 67).

Nearby activities:

• Zapata Falls is a really fun hike that is on your drive into/out of the park, and if you visit in the beginning of the season you’ll be traveling to a see a frozen waterfall!  (Hiking review here.)
• The alligator farm is a reasonable detour (but we’ve never been)
• Hiking the dunes is a must.  Even if you don’t go up to the high dune and see into the larger field of dunes, just walking along one of the ridges is a unique experience!
• Sledding on the dunes
• Playing in the sand (don’t forget sand/water toys for the kids!)
• Junior Ranger activities for the kids

Photos:

Our campsite last year.

The same campsite, but fenced in this year.

On the right is a view of our campsite from another campsite.  🙂

Cold mornings, but worth it!

Getting great speed for the first time–whether it’s the wooden sled itself or just the wax they supply for you to rub over the bottom, these things fly!

This year we saw a little tributary flowing into the creek for the first time.  It was eroding its banks as we watched–such a wonderful opportunity for the kids to really see in fast forward the things I’ve been telling them about!