What To Do & Where to Stay with A Half Day at Great Sand Dunes

During our 10 day Colorado road trip, Teddy and I spent our first day in Colorado Springs, and the morning of our second day riding The Royal Gorge Route Railway in Cañon City. From there, we drove about 2.5 hours south to Great Sand Dunes National Park and arrived in the later afternoon.

Depending on their store hours for the, try to stop at the Oasis Store on your way into the park. Here you can pick up groceries for a picnic, find souvenirs, and rent sand sleds. If you want to sand sled, this is the time to grab the rental, as you have to drive a bit into the park and won’t want to retrace your route.

We decided to forgo the sand sledding this time but instead picked up some items for a picnic in the park. We made our way to the Visitor Center a few miles down the road and got our passport stamp and learned about how the dunes were formed (wind, water, and sediment).

We had a higher clearance SUV so we decided to do a few miles on the Medano Pass Primitive Road. We went back a bit and then found a spot to pull over and have a lunchable picnic. After that we did some hiking on the dunes and just took in how massive they are, and how hard they are to hike. While we considered doing some other hiking trails while there, we decided that a few hours driving, picnicing, and then hiking on the dunes was good for us.

If you have more time in the area, you can check out the below hikes

• Zapata Falls – 1 Mile
• Montville Nature Trail – .5 Loop with a view of the dunes
• Wellington Ditch – 2.3 Miles with a view of the dunes

If you are looking for somewhere to stay overnight, you can check out the campground by the park, or if you’re willing to drive can check out some of the options we considered below. They are all renovated motels or cabins within about two hours.

• Frontier Drive Inn  in Center (40 min) – An old drive in movie theater resurrected with lodging! So unique!
• Mellow Moon in Del Norte (51 min) – Dog friendly, female owned, saloon coming in 2025!
• Loge Wolf Creek in South Fork (1 hour 10 min) – Your basecamp for adventure, right near skiing and hiking
• Nightingale Hotel  in Pagosa Springs (2 hours) – Historic motel right by the river and hot springs with a bar on site.
• High Creek Lodge and Camp in Pagosa Springs (2 hours) – Updated suites and cabins in the mountains

We ended up at the Loge in Wolf Creek because it still had a unique atmosphere, it didn’t require too much driving if we wanted to watch sunset in Great Sand Dunes, and was along the way to our next stop. We grabbed pizza for dinner nearby and just relaxed for the evening after a full day.