There are times in a man’s life when he needs to sit back and reassess the situation. Lying half-naked at the bottom of a 200-foot tall pile of sand in Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park, a bit tipsy from Rumplemintz and a snowboard strapped to my feet seemed to be just such a time for me.
![Great Sand Dunes](/legacy/images/9309.jpg)
It was the end of summer. Moonlight played across the dunes. Far above, blue dots of headlamps moved on a ridgeline where friends climbed into the night.
We were on a mission to sandboard the Great Dunes. What path in life led us to this? I thought about it for a moment and then dismissed the introspection — obviously, I was on the right path.
Sandboarding Newbie
Just a few hours earlier I’d been a sandboarding virgin. Fortunately, as an experienced snowboarder, there wasn’t much of a learning curve.
My friends Brian Kelley, Kurt Bohne and I had arrived at the dunes an hour before sunset. We set up camp and then climbed uphill, snowboards strapped on our backpacks. We had headlamps, a camera, a flashing emergency light, a few beers, and the Rumplemintz. What could go wrong?
OK, well right or wrong, the ease of sandboarding under such circumstances led to some serious oneupmanship and pushing of limits.
![Great Sand Dunes Sandboarding](/legacy/images/9307.jpg)
Summer Sandboarding: It’s Cooler At Night
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![Sandboarding Sand Dunes Monument](/legacy/images/9305.jpg)
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