Medano Pass 2009 Trip Report

TRIP REPORT FOR:  July 24, 2009 - Medano Pass

There were 5 vehicles total that left the Southside Safeway parking lot for this scenic trip across the Medano Pass to the Great Sand Dunes Preserve on a recent hot July afternoon. After leaving Colorado Springs we were able to watch the vehicle's outside temperate gauge increase as we traveled the highways to the Medano Pass hitting a high of 100 degrees in Florence, Colorado. It seemed that as soon as we left Florence the temperate steadily decreased to a pleasant 78 degrees where we stopped to make camp for the night.

Although another group beat us by minutes to our favorite camping spot on the Medano Pass we were able to quickly find another great camping spot just across the road. We quickly chose our individual camping spots, pitched our tents and starting exploring the trails in the area. After spending a couple of hours exploring the surrounding trails we returned to our campsite to start a camp fire and then enjoyed the company of the other voyagers on the trip through conversation and the creation of the traditional time honored smores.

Saturday morning we fixed breakfast and we again established those camping bonds by sharing whatever we had in abundance with each other. Sam and his granddaugher, Olivia, showed their typical sense of great timing by arriving just as we were eating our breakfast and joined our little group. This now meant we had 6 vehicles total for the trip.

 Shortly after starting the trip we stopped at the Continental Divide to bag a GPS cache and learned that Zebulon Pike traveled on the Medano Pass while exploring this area. We crossed Medano Creek several times and enjoyed splashing through the creek as we made our best attempt to soak our trip photographer.

After playing on the Dunes for a couple of hours, we ate lunch, visited the Visitor Center and returned back to our previous night's campsite. We then left a couple of the families to camp for another night while the rest of the group split up and returned back to Colorado Springs via our own chosen paths.

Trip Leaders - Tom Thompson and JoDel Jerred