[Leica] Great Sand Dunes National Park

[Aram Langhans]

Love that place and your pictures are great.  But did you hike to the top?
I timed some of it.  About half way up is a sort of level area and that is
where my wife pooped out.  That was at about 250 feet.   I went from there,
stopping in a few places to photograph, and it took me 45 minutes to slog
up, two steps forward, one step back.  I was exhausted but thrilled to be at
the top of the High Dune on the first ridge.   They say it is 700', but it
was the hardest 700' I ever did.  Rested at the top and took some photos,
then turned to go down.  I packed my camera carefully in a case and under my
windbreaker in case I fell, then off I went.  I timed it, too.  It took less
than 4 minutes to get back to her.  Each step with the sliding down was
probably 15-20 feet.  It was like skiing.  Amazing and fun.

Aram

Aram Langhans
(Semi) Retired  Science Teacher
& Unemployed photographer
 
“The Human Genome Project has proved Darwin more right than Darwin himself
would ever have dared dream.”   James D. Watson

-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Ritter [mailto:hlritter at bex.net] 
Sent: Thursday, August 07, 2014 9:47 PM
To: Leica Users Group; MUGers at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Leica] Great Sand Dunes National Park

We’re currently finishing up our first major (3 weeks) RV trip. One of the
most memorable stops was at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in
Colorado. Here prodigious amounts of sand produced over eons by erosion of
the San Luis Mountains has been carried by prevailing westerly winds across
the San Luis Valley, eventually getting deposited as the wind becomes
turbulent at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Easterly winter
winds push the sand back down off the mountains so that it has accumulated
in a field miles across and about 225 m/750ft high. From up close at the
base, the dune field is awesome (in the old sense, before the word was
bleached of its meaning), massive, serene, dwarfing even the cloud shadows
that fall on it.

Here is a link to my favorite several images:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/dunes/

All shot with my favorite grab-and-go camera, the Sony NEX7. I was unsure
about trusting $20K worth of M240 and lenses to the security of an RV for
several weeks, but I think that caution was unnecessary. Anyway, this way I
could use a circular polarizer, which I routinely use for landscapes,
especially when blue sky is in the picture.

C&C solicited and welcomed.

—howard