Adventurer: Sandboarding

Rising sharply from the flat floor of the San Luis Valley and shadowed by the 13,000-foot peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the golden-hued towers of the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado -- the tallest sand dunes in North America -- are an undeniably odd sight, almost as if a piece of the Sahara had been moved to southern Colorado.

At least thousands of years in the making, these dunes were created when sediment from the San Juan Mountains that had been deposited in lakes and rivers -- land that is now the San Luis Valley -- became exposed, dried and taken away by the wind as grains of sand. Where the wind dropped them became the dunes. Even today, when the wind picks up, it feels as if the dunes are still forming, the height of the peaks subtly shifting as your feet sink into the sand. Read more in The New York Times...

"Girl Sandboarding Above Medano Creek, Castle Creek Picnic Area" by Patrick Myers