Although we did not know it at the start, today would be consumed by autumn colors, The Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Great Sand Dune National Preserve. From our camp in the San Isabel NF (in the Wet Mountains) we passed through the town of Westcliffe (which seemed pretty much closed down for the season) and down highway 69 which travels north-south just east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. There are many minor roads heading west from 69 into the S de C and eventually we succumbed and started west towards Mosca Pass along CR-580. This country road changed names a number of times as it wound its way west and gradually deteriorated from a two lane black top into a narrow wheel track as it climbed to Mosca Pass at just short of 10,000 ft. Along the way we passed through farmland, open range and wonderful high alpine forest where the Aspens were displaying a wonderful mix of fall colors and providing a breath taking contrast to the dark spruce. We have been captivated by the yellow and orange colors of the Aspens for a number of days now and have been at great pains to capture these vivid colors with our camera, but they continue to prove elusive.

After a little playing around in the meadow at the pass trying to get "action" photos of the Mog we started our return to 69 only to come up behind a largish herd of cows being driven down the road. We followed behind these for some miles until one of the cowboys took pity on us and led us through the herd.

Some more country roads and more efforts to capture those colors occupied much of the remainder of the day before we emerged into the San Luis Valley and the Great Sand Dunes National Preserve. The Dunes themselves are quite impressive and the scale is a little difficult to grasp without getting up close to them, the highest is about 750ft above the valley floor.

We spent the afternoon light trying to get some good photos, and taking the Mog for a short drive along a narrow tree studded 4x4 trail which added to its collection of scratches.