Hiking to High Dune at Great Sand Dunes National Park!

Well, that did not go according to plan. Good morning from our 19th national park. Yes, yes. So we are at Great Sand Dunes National Park, which is one of four national parks in Colorado. There's the Mesa Verde, there's the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and the one everybody knows, Rocky Mountain National Park, which we came to a couple years ago. So Great Sand Dunes National Park is actually the newest of the four. So it was established in 2004. However, it's been around for a very long time. It was like a national preserve or a national monument beforehand. And as the name implies, it is known for having massive sand dunes. So there are actually five sand dunes here over 700 feet tall, including the tallest one in North America. Whoa. So we are going to climb the high dune today, which as you're driving into the park, it looks like it's the tallest, but it's 699 feet and it's all sand the whole way up. You ready? I sure hope so. Let's go. So the hike up to high dune is about three miles round trip. And we hear that it's faster or it's less distance if you just go straight up, but they advise zigzagging your way up. It makes it a little bit easier. And we hear it takes about two hours to do the whole thing. We're not even to the base of the dune and I'm already hot, like shedding clothes. We're walking on sand. It's like a quarter ish mile walk up here and my shoes are already full of sand. Yeah. And it's flat from the car to where we are now and we're already panting a bit. So things aren't looking very good for how exhausted we will be. And we hear it's really hard and a lot of people don't go all the way. We've already seen a ton of people just come to like the top, the first little ridge, small ridge and take a photo and leave. That's cool. Yeah. But we are determined to make it to the top of this bad boy. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. When we pulled up in the parking lot, just looking at it, I was like, this is kind of dinky. It's like, this is going to be easy. It's going to take 30 minutes to get down and up and back. But man, walking up, getting right up on it, this thing's massive. It's not dinky. It looks are deceiving, but the more like the closer we get to it, the more daunting it looks for sure. Some people come here in the summer. We are here in mid, early, mid November and I'm hot. I don't know how people do this in the summer. I think I read, I'll confirm that the sand can be up to 150 degrees in the summer. Sand feels really nice right now. It's the best part laying on. It's nice and cool. We haven't done much zigzagging. Yeah, we kind of went straight up, so probably didn't go the best way. I think we're getting close though. Our strategy was just get to the top of the ridge, which is where we are now. And they kind of walk straight to high dune or what we think is high dune. Now it's hard to tell which one's the tallest. It's deceiving though, because you'll get to the top of one or you think you'll get to it and then you'll think there's, it continues on after it, but it like dips way back down and then you have to go back up another one. It's like, ugh. It's fun though. It's all part of the fun. It's a really good workout. Yeah. Look at all the people coming from the parking lot. That was us like an hour and a half ago, something like that. Just little dots in the distance. They look like little ants. Just about made it. We made it. Yes. It took us longer than we thought. I think we're at like an hour and a half, but I think going down will be easier. For sure. But climbing up this brought back memories of when we climbed Mount St. Helens. Yeah. It's like all ash at the top. So it's like one step forward, two steps back the whole way. So you're just like fighting it the whole time. It's a tough leg workout getting up here. It feels good to be up here. It's good to be up here. There's so many dunes that you couldn't see before. Oh yeah. Like once you get up here, there's like a whole, whole other field of them back here. What's really neat is it's, so it's dunes right here, which feels like the desert. But then all around us, there are these beautiful mountains with tons of green trees and snow. Snow on it. I wasn't expecting that. So just a really cool, beautiful mix of scenery. Yeah. Down we go. I think it's going to be a little easier going down this way. We can take a more direct route. Fail. Epic fail. We made it to the bottom. Now it's time for the moment of truth. Who got the most sand in their shoes? Here we go. My shoes feel so full that they hurt. Like my shoes are so tight around my ankles and my toes because there's so much sand in there. I'm excited to see how much I have. Oh wow, you got me beat. On our way out, we stopped by the visitor center to get our customary park patch and some postcards for the fam. So there's more to do in the park than just climb on the sand dunes. But right now it's not really the right season for us. You need four by four and it's getting kind of late in the day for us. So now we're going to head outside of the park to what we hear is a really awesome waterfall called Zapata Falls. So the hike to the actual waterfall is really short. It's like 0.9 miles. However, the road to get to the trailhead we hear is extremely rough and challenging. So we're going to cross our fingers that Brisket can make it. All right, here we go down the dirt road. That did not go according to plan. Yeah, scratch that one off our list. We tried. Adam crushed it trying to get us down that road. We were going like a solid four miles per hour. Yeah. But we just, we couldn't do it. We had to turn back. I gave it a shot. Like the road on first glance, it doesn't look that bad. But once we got on it, you're tossing and spilling everywhere. Like there's dips and dives and there's big rocks and we have the stock tires on there. And so it's just, it's not really made for that. So I think we're going to play it safe on this one. Yeah. I was sitting in the back of the van because the top dresser drawers made to replace the latch on it. And it's not as good as our previous latches. And so it started to fall open. And then the other one started to fall open. So I just sat in the back and held all the dresser drawers closed while we're like wobbling everywhere. I hear stuff in like the cabinets, like shaking. And it was kind of funny, but also I was like, please nothing fall on me. So our philosophy now in the van is that it is our home and our vehicle. So before we would have maybe tried this on our SUV and we would have probably been fine. But if something were to happen to us now in the van, we would be out the vehicle and we'd be homeless. So we obviously can't have that happen. We're also not really in the best area to like call for help. We have service, but it's just, we're kind of far out from some stuff. So we just don't want to risk anything. Yeah. It's a big risk reward decision there. So, but anyways, we are going to head to our free and awesome camping spot that we've been to the last few nights and show you a little bit of a glimpse of just the daily life. Welcome to our home for the night. All right. And for dinner in the van, we have our favorite taco. All right. Taco pro tip. Get your cheese while the tortilla is still warming on the pan. Just like that. Let it melt. All right. So I'm going to show you how to make the perfect A plus K van taco. So we first start out with this awesome corn tortilla. So it's actually these tortillas, they're called tortilla land and they make them in flour. And we've recently discovered in corn and they're uncooked tortillas. So you cook them on the pan and they are amazing. I grew up eating the flour ones and they're like the best flour tortillas ever. I'm pretty sure Tacos Chuquis uses them. And these are the corn ones are super good too. They also hold together really well, which is always a downside of corn. Sometimes they fall apart. And then I'm going to scoop a little meat onto it, but not too much. Cause as you may have seen in some of our vlogs, I tend to be a pimp. So I don't want to overcommit to how much I put in the taco. And then I'm going to throw more cheese because I love cheese. Cheese is the best. And we sautéed some peppers. So I'm going to throw a few peppers in there. I'm not going to win for presentation. And then I'm going to throw on this sauce. Now what is it called Adam? So it's green Sriracha sauce, but the Trader Joe's version is called green dragon. It's so good, but this is the Safeway knockoff, which is just as good, but it's called green Sriracha. I put that stuff on almost everything. It's so good. And then I'm going to finish it off with some lettuce and make it look a little nicer. And that's an A plus K van taco. And now it's time for dessert. Adam made us a nice fire. We are having s'mores by the fire, but with a little twist, we've got Reese's on there instead of Hershey's, that little peanut butter kid. First you take the graham, then you roast the mallow. Then in this case, you take the Reese's, you insert the mallow sandwich, and then you chomp. Oh yeah. My turn. I really like my marshmallows burnt. Adam, how do you like your marshmallows? Just on the toasty side. All right. So let us know in the comments, if you're a toasty marshmallow or a burnt marshmallow kind of person. Yesterday we did a poll about chunky or juicy salsa. I'm a juicy salsa kind of girl. Adam's a chunky salsa kind of guy. Chunky one, but I wasn't alone. Some people like the juice. So yeah, I got a nice charred. There's one little spot that's not charred. Marshmallow. Get it on my Reese's. I'm not as good at this as Adam is. Look at that. All right. Here we go. Get a load of that. That is so good. Even though today did not go a hundred percent according to plan, I still had a really fun day. Me too. I mean, give us tacos and s'mores and a campfire and running down sand dunes. Perfect. It was, it was a blast. It was, the sand dunes were more fun than I thought they'd be, to be honest. But the next time you see us, we'll be in Denver and we'll be doing some fun things and eating some yummy stuff. Can't wait. We'll see you then. See ya. This is hard. It's not turning out how we hoped. Hi-ho, hi-ho. The ants go marching one by one. And now it's time for dessert.