Mosca Pass Trail, Great Sand Dunes National Park

The majority of visitors to Great Sand Dunes National Park explore only the sands and adjacent Medano Creek, but the preserve also contains a sizeable section of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains where the land rises up to 5,500 feet above the valley floor, at the summit of Tijeras Peak. The main high elevation region, which includes several Alpine lakes, is difficult to access, reached from the west by the 4WD Medano Pass Road, or from the east by a better quality track starting along Hwy 69, a 108 mile drive from the visitor center. But there is one path into the mountains that starts beside the dunes; the 3.5 mile Mosca Pass Trail, which follows a fairly narrow valley up towards a low point in the mountain crest. The elevation gain is not too great (1,520 feet) and route is never particularly steep.

It might be expected that the trail would give increasingly spectacular panoramas of the sand dunes, but apart from a few glimpses near the start, the views are only of the valley sides, since the drainage is quite gently sloping, and slightly winding, so the sands are soon hidden. The path encounters varied terrain including dry meadows, moist meadows, dense woodland and exposed slopes with yucca and cacti, but no parts are particularly exciting.

Perhaps the main reason for hiking, in spring and summer, is the large number of wildflower species; at least 50 of them can be found, producing blooms of many different colors. Certainly very few people complete the full hike. The path ends rather anticlimactically at the edge of an anonymous grassy field, from where a vehicle track continues eastwards; there are no long distance views from the pass, although a lot more can be seen by a short hike up the adjacent hillside.