Despite a 4-inch snowfall just before Memorial Day weekend, a record number of people visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park on the eastern edge of Colorado’s San Luis Valley, the National Park Service announced.
More than 6,000 vehicles passed through the park entrance, easily surpassing last year’s record of 4,000 vehicles, the service said in a news release.
Although considered one of the park service’s lesser-known and less-visited sites, the dunes are just outside of Mosca and have been a featured part of a documentary commemorating the agency’s 100th anniversary that’s aired nationally.
“We anticipate that the summer of 2016 will be our busiest ever, and we ask that visitors be patient and respectful of each other — on our roadways, trails, in the campground, in the back-country and at the Medano Creek beach,” park superintendent Lisa Carrico said.
There are a limited number of daily passes issued for the park’s camping and back-country camping, and visitors typically claim them by mid-morning.
The dunes are the tallest in North America, sit at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and offer a variety of activities from camping and hiking to snowboarding (called “sand sledding”) and fishing. The dunes are just a portion of the 149,000 acres that make up the entire preserve.
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