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Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is a
national park that conserves an area of large sand
dunes up to 750 feet (229 m) tall
[4] on the eastern edge of the
San Luis Valley, and an adjacent
national preserve located in the
Sangre de Cristo Range, in south-central
Colorado, United States.
[5] The park was originally designated Great Sand Dunes
National Monument on March 17, 1932 by President
Herbert Hoover. The original boundaries protected an area of 35,528 acres (55.5 sq mi).
[6] A boundary change and redesignation as a national park and preserve was authorized on November 22, 2000 and then established by an act of
Congress on September 24, 2004.
[2] The park encompasses 107,342 acres (167.7 sq mi) while the preserve protects an additional 41,686 acres (65.1 sq mi) for a total of 149,028 acres (232.9 sq mi).
[1]
The park contains the tallest sand dunes in
North America.
[7] The dunes cover an area of about 30 sq mi (78 km2) and are estimated to contain over 5 billion cubic meters of sand.
[8] Sediments from the surrounding mountains filled the valley over
geologic time periods. After lakes within the valley receded, exposed sand was blown by the predominant southwest winds toward the Sangre de Cristos, eventually forming the dunefield over an estimated tens of thousands of years.
[9] The four primary components of the Great Sand Dunes system are the mountain
watershed, the dunefield, the
sand sheet, and the
sabkha.
[8] Ecosystems within the mountain watershed include
alpine tundra,
subalpine forests,
montane woodlands, and
riparian zones.
[10]
Evidence of human habitation in the San Luis Valley dates back about 11,000 years. The first historic peoples to inhabit the area were the
Southern Ute Tribe, while
Apaches and
Navajo also have cultural connections in the dunes area. In the late
17th century,
Don Diego de Vargas—a
Spanish governor of
Santa Fe de Nuevo México—became the first European on record to enter the San Luis Valley.
Juan Bautista de Anza,
Zebulon Pike,
John C. Frémont, and
John Gunnison all travelled through and explored parts of the region in the
18th and
19th centuries. The explorers were soon followed by settlers who ranched, farmed and mined in the valley starting in the late 19th century. The park was first established as a national monument in 1932 to protect it from gold mining and the potential of a
concrete manufacturing business.
[11]
Visitors must walk across the wide and shallow
Medano Creek to reach the dunes in spring and summer months. The creek typically has a peak flow from late May to early June in most years. From July through April, the creek is usually no more than a few inches deep, if there is any water at all.
[12] Hiking is permitted throughout the dunes with the warning that the sand surface temperature may reach 150 °F (66 °C) in summer.
[13] Sandboarding and
sandsledding are popular activities, both done on specially designed equipment which can be rented just outside the park entrance or in
Alamosa.
[14] Visitors with
street-legal four-wheel drive vehicles may continue past the end of the park's main road to Medano Pass on 22 miles (35 km) of unpaved road, crossing the
stream bed of Medano Creek nine times and traversing 4 miles (6.4 km) of deep sand.
[15] Hunting is permitted in the preserve during the months of autumn, while hunting is prohibited within national park boundaries at all times.
[16] The preserve encompasses nearly all of the mountainous areas north and east of the dunefield, up to the ridgeline of the Sangre de Cristos.
Source: Wikipedia
The model is created at a scale of 1:125,000 with 1.75x vertical exaggeration. It features a built-in base, so it sits perfectly on a desk or in a frame.
Model Data Sources: USDA, USGS