Medano Pass and Hermit Pass

[dy_lon]

Back in July, my wife and I visited The Great Sand Dunes and went through the Medano Pass. Last weekend, August 6th and 7th, we went with some friends on hermit pass, outside of Westcliffe, CO. Both passes had beautiful scenery. I would recomend Medano Pass over Hermit Pass though. More enjoyable trail. Hermit is a ton of rocks the entire way, while Medano has all types of terrain.

Here are some pictures from our adventures..
San Luis Lakes/ Great Sand Dunes / Medano Pass:

Hermit Pass and Capulin Volcano:

A panorama from the lookout at the top of Capulin Volcano...

An interesting road on the way home...

 

[BIGGUY]

Very nice.

 

[Nikson]

Beautiful...

 

[JCMatthews]

great trips and great pics!

 

[Whitey]

Great pics.

Anyone know what type of snake that is?

 

[dy_lon]

Great pics.

Anyone know what type of snake that is?

I'm not sure. No one at the look out knew either.

-Dylan

 

[Bushmaster6]

I took my (75 year old) dad up Hermit pass in my CJ7... some nice scenery but I agree with you, the ride was just brutal... to the point of not being enjoyable.. we turned around at the little lake at the top when the flurries started flying (in SEP) and headed back to Westcliffe... which has a decent little Irish pub to stop in.

. Both passes had beautiful scenery. I would recomend Medano Pass over Hermit Pass though. More enjoyable trail. Hermit is a ton of rocks the entire way, while Medano has all types of terrain.

 

[dy_lon]

I took my (75 year old) dad up Hermit pass in my CJ7... some nice scenery but I agree with you, the ride was just brutal... to the point of not being enjoyable.. we turned around at the little lake at the top when the flurries started flying (in SEP) and headed back to Westcliffe... which has a decent little Irish pub to stop in.

We went to the lake ( now a pond) and turned around. My garmin stated we were about 119xx feet. Im not sure how high you can get in a vehicle, but we turned around when it started to get dark. The trail was rough coming back down. And we also stopped at the pub ( I think the same one you are talking about) and had a late dinner. If you look at the picture of the two jeeps parked on the pavement in the town, we parked jsut arcorss the street from the pub. Good Food!

-Dylan