Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve Bingo

A fast runner on open sand with a violin-shaped back. It lives nowhere else on Earth.

This beetle is one of at least seven kinds of insect found only at Great Sand Dunes and nowhere else on the planet.

A tall gray bird with a red crown, bugling over the San Luis Valley in migration.

A crane's trumpeting call carries more than a mile. The sound comes from a windpipe so long it coils up inside the bird's chest, like a trumpet folded to fit.

A harmless snake that hisses and shakes its tail to pretend it is a rattlesnake.

A bullsnake has no rattle and no venom, but it can hiss, flatten its head, and shake its tail in dead grass well enough to fool people into thinking it's a rattlesnake.

A dusty-blue flock bird of the piñon and juniper, burying pine seeds for later.

Its beak and the bare skin around its nostrils are shaped for prying seeds out of sticky, resin-covered pinecones.

A big black problem-solver. Listen for the deep croak above the dunefield.

Ravens are some of the smartest birds alive. In tests they can "count" to about seven and solve puzzles, and young ravens do about as well as adult chimpanzees on some thinking tasks.

The 699-foot first-ridge climb most families do: 2.5 miles round-trip in loose sand.

The tall dune most families actually climb, 699 ft from base per NPS.

The creek that runs in surge waves along the east edge of the dunes in late spring.

A wide, shallow stream skirting the east edge of the dunefield, fed by Sangre de Cristo snowmelt.

Tied with Hidden Dune at 741 feet, the tallest dunes in North America. A six-mile day.

The two tallest dunes in North America, tied at 741 ft from base per NPS.

The range that rises straight off the sand sheet and makes the dunes possible.

The range that rises straight off the sand sheet within the preserve: Mount Herard (13,345 ft), Cleveland Peak, and the Crestone Group.

A shaded climb through aspen and conifer to the pass, about 3.5 miles one way.

The shaded alternative to the dunes on a hot afternoon.

The shortest, shadiest walk in the park, a creekside loop near the visitor center.

The shortest, shadiest walk in the park, a creekside interpretive loop near the visitor center per NPS, and the only trail a stroller can partly manage.

The campground in the piñon-juniper below the dunes. Cold nights, long views.

The only campground inside the park, set in piñon-juniper above the dunefield with a view across the sand to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

About 20,000 sandhill cranes stage in the valley each spring, 45 miles southwest.

Each spring, on the order of 20,000 sandhill cranes stage in the San Luis Valley on migration, and the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge and its annual Crane…

A private reptile park in Mosca. The family held a crocodile and moved turtles.

A private reptile park in Mosca, west of the dunes, where the kids held and fed a crocodile and helped carry turtles out to a sunny pen.

Rent a sled or board at the Oasis store or in Alamosa, wax it, and find a steep face.

The thing most kids come here to do.

The first full view of the dunefield, with Medano Creek in front and the Sangres behind.

The first and easiest view of the whole dunefield, with Medano Creek in front and the Sangres behind.

No restaurant in the park. Drive to Alamosa for a sit-down dinner in the valley.

There is no in-park restaurant; the Oasis store at the entrance carries snacks and sled rentals, not meals.

Pick up the booklet at the visitor center, finish the pages, and get sworn in.

Watch the film at the visitor center. It is what sent us out to the sand.

Sit in on a ranger program. Ours covered wasps and how the landscape works.

Start before sunrise. The sand is cool, the light is low, and the crowds are still asleep.

Turn in place: dunes, then mountains, then an aspen hillside. Three places in one spot.

Look for yellow and orange on the hillside beyond the sand in early October.

Turn your shoes over at the van. The sand comes out for days.