Air Date: Week of July 24, 2026

Southern Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes form mesmerizing patterns in the wind. (Photo: © Mark Seth Lender)

One of the national parks you might visit this summer, or any time of year is Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado, with the tallest dunes in North America. That’s where Living on Earth Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender watched the landscape and a local herd of elk as weather came in.

Transcript

CURWOOD: One of the national parks you might visit this summer or any time of year is Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado, with the tallest dunes in North America. That’s where Living on Earth Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender watched the landscape change as weather came in.

Vanilla Frosting
Tule Elk
Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge
&
Great Sand Dunes National Park
© 2026 Mark Seth Lender
All Rights Reserved

Elk have gathered at the far side of San Louis Lake. The elk, first time I saw them, were in stampede, bounding through the creosote bush, clods of earth flying. Now they are just standing, in the lee of the hill. Waiting.

The lake is sour. Salt, more likely selenium whitens the shoreline like a parched mouth. The elk neither drink nor come near. Breeding season is over. Many of the females are pregnant. The bucks have lost their antlers. There are two of them. Tall, heavy, easy to pick out. One by one, the elk lie down. The bucks remain on guard. They will be the last to give in. Beyond and above them the Great Sand Dunes also appear to be in repose, on the edge of slumber. Except the dunes are enormous, the sweeping patterns in the sand hard to describe. They stand out from the blue mountains beyond. As if they are alive. Breathing. They make the elk look small and out of place.

In the morning the elk are gone. It snowed in the night, that’s what they had been waiting for. Not so much waiting, as they knew. And that was why they chose the lee of the hill for a place of repose. I had no idea. The sky had been blue. Hardly a cloud. Now, I understand. With the snow the contours of the Great Sand Dunes are also made clear. Vanilla frosting. That’s what it looks like. Thick, white, spread by a giant spatula. Too perfect to be anything else. At dusk there were so many colors, mauve and raw umber and sandstone yellow. But those were only the ingredients. Here, is the finished cake.

CURWOOD: That’s Living on Earth Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender.

 

Links

Visit Mark Seth Lender’s website here

Explore Great Sand Dunes National Park