High up in the middle of the Rocky Mountains is quite the anomaly, sand dunes. Dunes in the mountains, I knew I had to see them for myself, so my buddy and I planned a camping trip. We set out for three days and two nights into the unknown. All we knew is that we wanted to see the dunes, take pictures, and camp. Up an old winding dirt and gravel road that was rough enough to bounce mufflers and fillings out, was our campsite at Zapata Falls.
Being late July, it was hot. So after setting up camp, we decided to check out the falls and cool off in the mist. The game plan was to run into the small nearby town for a few missed supplies and watch the sunset from camp as we were a good way up the east side of the valley. It didn't take long for us to start hating the road up to our camp. Sunset came right as we got our campfire going. It had to be one of my top favorite sunsets.
That evening a storm rolled in on the eastern side of the mountain. With the storm came thunder and lighting. Luckily it made for great pictures and not bad weather. The next morning was overcast but dry from the storm. This was quite the relief, but it didn't stick around for long. We explored a bit on our way to the dunes finding an abandoned house that had the most ominous crows I've seen.
We tried to do some "off the road" exploring on some sandy roads, but nearly getting stuck in deep soft sand changed our minds about that pretty quick. The central dune area was very crowded and hot, so we decided to explore the creek. It didn't take long for it to dry out and go underground, but every corner promised a discovery. We ended up chasing some deer saw and were following their tracks, but ended up not seeing them again. At our stopping point, we dug into the dry creek bed and found flowing water not too deep. After a quick drink, we headed back.
To be honest, we were both feeling a bit bummed from the day's adventures. It wasn't what we were hoping for, and I think we were burnt out from bringing in the sun all day. We made our way back to camp feeling a little defeated. I think all we needed was to let go of our expectations, get some rest, grab a bite and some water; we felt much better. I think we were placing high expectations on ourselves on what photos we wanted to come away with. So we did our best to let go and head back to the dunes, but to a different unpopulated area for the golden hour. Holy cow was that the ticket. As soon as we let go, that's when we found what we were looking for.
The next morning we took it easy. We slept in, made coffee and breakfast burritos and just relaxed on our last morning at camp. After cleaning up and thoroughly putting out our campfire, we hit the road for our way back home. We stopped at a few places that caught our attention on the way over. One of these places was an Alien UFO lookout tower. Pretty cool.
Photography Date: 7-31-16
Writing Date: 2-26-18
