Day 39: Great Sand Dunes and Bishop’s Castle, Colorado

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is now Michael’s favorite national park that we’ve visited up until now. It has the tallest sand dunes in North America, some up to 228 meters (750 feet) tall. The dunes cover about 77 square kilometers (30 square miles) and formed over thousands of years by wind and water carrying sediment from the nearby mountains. It’s incredible to have this epic landscape right in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. 

Besides the vast sand landscape, there’s a mix of ecosystems, including alpine lakes, forests, grasslands, and wetlands, making it a home for wildlife including black bears, mountain lions, elk, marmots, bald eagles, and peregrine falcons. Today, you can hike up the dunes, go sandboarding, and go stargazing at night. 

Unlike our visit to White Sands National Park, Great Sand Dunes doesn’t have any boards for hire, so if you want to sandboard you need to bring your own. We didn’t have a sandboard, but we were eager to hike up the dunes, which would apparently take 2 hours or so. We took Sheila (dogs are allowed on a lot of the trails but need to be on a short leash), and after a while, we were panting hard, thanks to the very steep incline and our feet trudging up on the sandy terrain. We had to take a few rest stops, before we finally made it to the top. Well, maybe almost to the top. There was one more sand dune that we could get up to that was higher, but it required running down a very steep descent and then hiking back up a pretty vertical dune! We decided to skip this and have fun running down the dunes to get back, and it was so cute to see Sheila’s little legs scurrying in the sand like a little roadrunner cartoon character. 

While we didn’t arrive super early at the National Park (around 9.30am or so), we had our pick of parking spots. By the time we got back after lunch the park was  packed, so it’s a good reminder that for any popular attraction, it’s always best to arrive early! 

Bishop Castle

Our next stop was Bishop Castle, which was recommended to us by Johnnie of Classical Gas Station fame (who we met 2 days ago). Bishop Castle is a unique roadside attraction in central Colorado. Built single-handedly by the late Jim Bishop over several decades, it was initially intended to be a cottage, but when neighbors commented that it looked like a castle, Jim evolved and expanded its design, with a very medieval-inspired appearance (complete with towers, a dragon, and multiple stained glass windows). 

We were in awe of the drive up to the castle, as it is high up in the mountains and it would have been quite a feat to haul up all the rocks and materials that make up the castle! It’s still not finished, so anyone who visits does need to be careful of where they step. We had some metal flooring come loose where we stepped, there’s some broken glass on the floor, and some of the stairs don’t have railings! Still, it’s very impressive that this was all the work of one man over many years, and today his family continues to tend to the castle. It’s free to go in, with donations accepted. 

As we drove toward Colorado Springs, we passed what was clearly a prison, which turned out to be the Supermax prison in Florence. It is the only supermax in the country, a maximum security jail that houses some of the most dangerous and infamous criminals in the world, including El Chapo, the Boston Marathon bomber, domestic and foreign terrorists, underground crime figures, and others. Lisette was shocked that we could see the buildings as we drove past, because she assumed that the Supermax would be set back far, far away from civilian life. 

When we had stayed in the RV Park in Taos the person camping next to us was from this area, and he recommended a quiet street to park behind a BBQ restaurant, which worked out perfectly. After an active day and a long drive, we were eager to relax for the night.

Route Map