Medano Pass

On Saturday morning Stacie and I drove up Medano Pass.  We were planning to do some four wheeling to get to the Medano Lake trailhead, hike to the lake, and then drive back down the pass.  Medano Pass Primitive Road starts right by the campground in the Great Sand Dunes National Park, and the first five miles travel north along the side of the dune field.  This stretch is very sandy and soft.  After that the trail climbs up into the Sangre de Cristo mountains, basically following Medano Creek.  The trail crosses the creek ten times before the top of the pass.  I had never driven in sand before, and I had limited experience driving through water, so it promised to be an exciting drive.

After breakfast I aired down the tires on the Hummer to 15psi and we headed out of our camp site.  The first stretch of the road was wide and easy; there was plenty of room to pull over and no deep sand to worry about.  There was a lot of traffic on this part of the road; it seemed like half the campers were taking their trucks and SUVs out for a drive.

After about a mile we got to the Point of No Return.  There is a small parking lot and a large sign warning inexperienced drivers of the conditions ahead.  One of the rangers told us that the minimum wrecker fee this year is actually $1500.  At this point the traffic dropped off sharply, and we didn't see another vehicle all through the sandy stretch.

As we passed the Point of No Return I picked up the speed a little bit to make sure I could maintain momentum and stay on top of the sand.  The sand got progressively softer as we went along; in some places the main tire tracks (where all of the vehicles had compressed the sand) were eight to ten inches deeper than the sand around them, and of course the sand under the tire tracks was practically bottomless.

At one point on the trail we went around a corner and saw another sign warning of extremely soft sand ahead.  This is where it really got fun.  There were still plenty of hills and sharp corners, which made it interesting as I tried to balance keeping my momentum up and slowing down for possible oncoming vehicles.  The trail in this section was just two deep tire tracks in the middle of soft sand, so there was no way I could have pulled over to get around another vehicle without getting stuck.  Luckily, we didn't meet any other vehicles so we were able to drive through without problems.

After a short while the sand got a little bit firmer again and the trail started heading more east into the mountains.  At this point the sand was still soft enough that I had to pay attention, but not enough to be a serious concern.  We did meet another SUV coming the other direction and we were both able to carefully go around each other in the softer sand at a wider spot on the trail.

Eventually the sand started giving way to forest as we approached the foothills.  The trail got quite a bit narrower but also easier; there were no significant rocks, sand, or any other obstacles other than the creek.

 

Right near the boundary of the park we came to the first creek crossing.  The bottom of the creek is made of small rocks and sand, so it was actually quite smooth to drive across.  The water was only about 10" deep, so it was no big deal.  At the end of summer like this the creek is usually pretty low.  In the spring time it can be 30" deep or more in this same spot.

The rest of the trail was just a fun drive through the woods.  The trail was basically smooth, with occasional small rocks.  There were sections where it got narrow between trees or large rocks where we had to slow down to squeeze through, but it was never very difficult, and we even saw a few full size trucks that had managed to scrape through.  About every 10 – 15 minutes we crossed the creek again.  As we got higher up the pass the creek got shallower, until it was only a couple inches deep (but still fun to drive through!).

At one point when we were following along the left side of the creek we saw a beaver dam and house:

Farther up the trail we saw the remnants of the old Herard homestead in a meadow on the left side of the trail.  This meadow is also know for the regular herds of Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep that frequent it, but we were disappointed not to see any on our way through.

Along the trail we had been seeing the backcountry primitive campsites that are available.  It was amazing to see the vehicles that people had brought up here; I think they must have come from the Westcliff side because there is no way the Subaru and Acura SUVs would have made it through the sand.  I'm amazed they were brave enough to take them through the creek crossings.

 

Shortly before our turn off, along the right side of the road I saw something in the grass that I couldn't quite identify.  When we got closer we realized that it was a flock of ptarmigan hiding in the tall grass.  As we continued up the trail we spotted other flocks several more times.

 

After about two hours of driving we got up to the left turn to the Medano Lake trailhead. At this point Shy-Anne was feeling a little sick so Stacie got out to walk her the last eighth of a mile.

When we got the the trailhead we got out and hiked the Medano Lake trail (read about our hike here).  When we got back, we relaxed in the Hummer for a while and then headed back down the pass.

The way back down was just like the way up, except that this time we saw more traffic heading up. At one point we even ran into a park ranger driving a full size Ford truck; I don't know how he managed to sqeeze through some of the tight spots without loosing his mirrors.

Although this is an easy trail for a 4x4 with good ground clearance, it's still not a trail for just any truck or SUV.  On the way back down we collected some pictures of lost parts from less prepared vehicles:

Overall this trail was great fun to drive, and I'm looking forward to going back. It wasn't very technically challenging at this time of year, but it was interesting and scenic enough to make up for it.  Down at the bottom of the pass you get some views of the north side of the sand dunes that you won't see any other way.

View all of the pictures: Photo Gallery