Great Sand Dunes National Park and Blanca Peak
Last year I was lucky to visit four national parks for the first time: Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Acadia National Park. All were amazing (especially Acadia—it lives up to the billing) and I wondered then what parks I might visit in 2023. Needless to say, 2023 has been a wild ride, but one that prevented me thus far from visiting any new national parks, though I have seen multiple new national forests this year, including Chattahoochee National Forest, Pike National Forest, and San Isabel National Forest (it helps that I work with the last two).
One of the cool things about moving to Colorado was indeed the chance to visit new spaces so with the boys arriving for Thanksgiving this week, I was eager to do. I’d never heard of Great Sand Dunes National Park until moving here, though friends recommended it as a great place to stop in. The park is about a two hour drive from home, but since much of that driving is through the mountain passes, I hoped the fellas wouldn’t mind too much. We hopped in the old truck and headed south and then west.
One of the things that appealed to me was the opportunity to get to see Blanca Peak, which lay along the route between Pueblo and the park. Blanca, like many mountains, is holy space for several Indigenous communities, but especially for the Diné (Navajo) people, who consider it to be one of their grandfather mountains. Parts of the San Isabel National Forest also cross over the mountain, meaning that the zone I work for is responsible for part of the upkeep of the landscape. From my understanding, the mountain’s summit or summit access is privately owned so getting up requires some work.
I wasn’t interested in that today. Frankly after trying the Spanish Peaks, I’m all mountained out for a little bit. But I did want to stop by the mountain with my boys and pay our respects if that makes any sense.
I was also interested in what kinds of stories are being told over the landscape, regardless of whether it is on National Forest Service-administered properties or not. In this, I was a bit disappointed. The interpretive signs said nothing about which Tribes consider this mountain home, let alone what the mountain might mean, or how we can learn more.
But in these disappointments are opportunities. I’d like if I can—and more importantly if the Tribes consider it to be in their interests—to work to tell better stories about the landscapes around us. That’s one of the things I am working on in the Forest Service here in Pueblo now. Fortunately, we’ve got some great people who are really enthusiastic about reframing the many diverse histories of Colorado and beyond.
We continued on to Great Sand Dunes National Park, where I quickly discovered that I should’ve planned this trip better. The park has a ton of trails for hiking and you can even climb the sand dunes themselves, but you need to plan for a minimum of a couple hours for each pursuit. Plus, there’s no real food options nearby so you’ll need to plan ahead and pack accordingly. We did none of those things. So we stopped in to the visitor’s center, walked out on the sand dunes with Buster (leashed dogs absolutely welcome, though I did see a wirehaired pointing griffon that brought up bad memories), and snapped pictures together. Of course, we grabbed stickers and magnets and the like.
Watching the clock, we left after a little while to begin the drive home, stopping off in Alamosa (the nearest town) for a late lunch, making it home just in time to kick off the #HATM showing of Up in the Air.
Readings
Holiday season is here. I like to give books. I don’t know that people will read them, but I find that people like to receive books, mostly because that means the person giving them the book thinks they are smart so it’s a compliment and everyone wins. Or maybe someone will actually read it. But I’m from Kentucky, so good luck on that. Either way, here are a couple options if you’re interested in national parks. And nope, I don’t get anything from them so here ya go:
Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. This is pretty much your standard pop history, if pop histories were super immersive and beautifully written. It’s a beast though, at over 900 pages. It’s also the kind of things dads love. It has TR. The words warrior, wilderness, and crusade are in the title. Even if they don’t read this, people will enjoy having it on their shelves so other people will think they read it. Look, most history enthusiasm is about perception and prestige anyway, and the perception of prestige, so just go with it.
Mark David Spence, Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks. Look, it’s ok to love national parks. They’re beautiful and majestic and can be the scenes of dramatic ecosystem recoveries. But they are also built on Indigenous lands. Every last one of them. And the United States forcibly evicted Indigenous peoples from those lands and created a series of denials to those lands. Appreciating these landscapes means coming to terms with all of this. Spence’s book—a quick 200ish pages—gets right to it. If you’re interested in the complicated history of America’s national parks, here ya go.
HATM Podcast
A reminder that we are on a quick little two week break right now so we’ll have some new episodes coming next week. In the meantime, check out an older episode of ours just in time for Thanksgiving: Soul Food with Adrian Miller and Mark Johnson:
HATM Sunday Night
Finally, since I’m in the West, let’s go West with an underrated classic featuring an all-star lineup. Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Danny Glover, and Kevin Costner face off against villains Brian Dennehy and Jeff Goldblum in Silverado. It’s available on Netflix so we hope to see you on twitter at 8pm eastern this Sunday, November 26.
Alrighty. Hey, thanks for reading and thanks for being part of the HATM Community. You are most welcome here.