Wilderness History
Research by Arthur Vyn Boennighausen
Along the eastern edge of the San Luis Valley, banked against the towering Sangre de Cristo Mountains, are some 40 square miles of vast shifting sand dunes that form one of the country's natural wonders. The choicest part of the area, 46,034 acres of it, was made in 1932 into the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. Some of the hills of sand - the largest and highest in America - rise over 1,000 feet from their bases, and are heaped up in rolling masses like giant sea waves ever in motion. The glowing, colored sand is especially fascinating at dawn and sunset, and shines like silver in the sunlight.
It has been widely reported that the sand contains gold once estimated to be worth eight billion dollars. Attempts have been made to recover it from time to time and some elaborate promotion schemes have been undertaken. A petrographic study of the sand made for a Master's thesis in 1947 by Frank Hayford, revealed no trace of gold in his samples.