In springtime, visitors to Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado can usually witness a unique quirk of local geology. As warmer weather melts snow from atop the nearby Sangre de Cristo mountain range, a seasonal creek, known as Medano Creek, forms at the base of the dunes. When runoff peaks around Memorial Day, the creek’s flow is often high enough to form waves, making this “natural beach” a popular destination for wading and tubing.
Amid the state’s record-low snowpack, however, it seems likely that Medano Creek will not flow as it usually does this year. As a result, the beach hasn’t yet formed at the park’s main parking lot, drastically limiting who is able to access it.
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“The very warm weather in March coupled with very low snowpack has had some impacts on the park experience,” Naaman Horn, a spokesperson for the park, told SFGATE in an email. “The Medano Creek is only visible flowing above the surface of the sand at a location of approximately 3/4 of a mile upstream from the Main Dunes Parking Lot.”
The waves at Medano Creek are created by the dunes themselves, which are the tallest in North America. The two highest, Star Dune and Hidden Dune, loom roughly 750 feet above the valley floor, and they themselves are dwarfed by the surrounding peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Visitors can attempt to summit the dunes and can even ride a sled or snowboard down — a sport called sandboarding.
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As the creek flows around the base of the dunes, it piles up sand like miniature dams until the water finally pushes through, creating a new set of waves about every 20 seconds. Late May and early June are the best times to experience this “surge flow,” and Great Sand Dunes has long been a popular spring destination when the rest of the state is still thawing out. Medano Creek is such an unusual phenomenon that Travel + Leisure magazine listed the park among its 26 best beaches in the U.S. last month, and in any given year, it draws around 500,000 visitors.
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“It’s just so bizarre to see a creek come out of nowhere,” Mark Altmeyer, a Denver local who frequently visits the park to photograph Medano Creek, told SFGATE. “When it’s really flowing, it’s really fun to watch families enjoy it with their kids.”
This year, however, things are looking very different. Statewide, Colorado is experiencing the lowest snowpack ever recorded, amounting to just 22% of what is average for this time of year. While a storm this week may bring some relief, Horn said the lack of snow has already prompted abnormal conditions. Recent photos from the park show bare peaks, and Horn notes that some plants are blooming much earlier than usual.
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The current flow rate of Medano Creek — 3.56 cubic feet per second as of May 6 — is not the lowest ever recorded, but it is still well below a typical year, when average flows hover around 16 cubic feet per second in early spring and peak at 40. As such, the creek has yet to reach the main parking lot, which serves as the primary access point. Today, getting to the creek requires visitors to either hike a little under a mile from the parking area or drive a high-clearance, four-wheel-drive vehicle down a primitive road to the Sand Pit or Castle Creek picnic areas. But even there, the creek is moving so slowly that there’s very little surge flow.
While conditions appear dire, May can be an unpredictable month for weather in the mountains, and it’s possible the area could still see more large storms. It seems unlikely, however, that Medano Creek will recover to reach its usual levels.
Despite these challenges, visitation to the park has not suffered, according to Horn, but people have been asking staff about the creek frequently, he said. Heading into the Memorial Day weekend, park officials are preparing for business as usual.
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“As Great Sand Dunes is one of the more accessible recreation sites in May for much of the mountainous areas of Colorado, we do expect to have a comparable number of visitors,” he told SFGATE, adding that between 12,000 and 13,000 people visited during Memorial Day weekend in 2025. “... Even without the creek being in a state of high flow, many visitors still enjoy sand boarding, hiking, and camping in the park.”
In a post on Facebook, park officials urged visitors to prepare for crowds, noting that traffic lines can reach up to 3 miles long.
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