June trip to explore Colorado

luv2gowalkabout wrote:
Thanks everyone for the advice. I am trying to narrow everything down in the next couple of days. We always prefer off season but are unable to do that this year. so I know I will probably have some trouble. There is a New moon scheduled in June and it would time for The Great Sand dunes. Supposedly they are a dark sky site. We are thinking of braving mosquitos to go anyway. If we plan 3 days at Mesa we can use this for home base to go back to Durango?

The Great Sand Dunes would indeed be a wonderful place for astronomical observations. Not much around for competing light sources. There's a CG inside the park, there's a commerical place just outside the entrance, and there's San Luis State Park to the west of GSDNP. San Luis could be the best place for dark skies as well as less problems with critters. And it's not just skeeters at GSD...the black flies are ferocious there, some the size of small aircraft :E

3 days at Mesa Verde would be a good visit there. Was down there in October and only had a full day, so had to cut out a lot of things to see. There's 2 different mesas there. Chapin Mesa has the more popular cliff dwellings. But there's also Wetherill Mesa, which is at a higher elevation, and has some distinct sites to visit.

As to using it as a base for Durango, that's doable. If you stay inside the park, be aware that the CG is 4 miles in from the entrance and a somewhat significant climb from the entrance, and that most of the sites are another 11 or so miles from Morefield to the visitor's center and lodge.

Going back to Durango, it's about 45-60 minutes depending on traffic. If the train is on your agenda, it's not difficult to get to the train station in Durango; signage is everywhere and there's a goodly amount of parking there.