Sangre de Cristo Mountains

The Sangre de Cristo Mountains tower above the Sau Luis Valley and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. 

This lone road leads to the Great Sand Dunes National Forest and on the way passes through the Zapata Ranch. Owned by the Nature Conservancy, this 100,000 acre high desert ranch is home to thousands of Bison, Elk, Cattle and horses.

To read about the ranch go here: http://www.zranch.org/

A Beautiful Mountain Range 

 This  is the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, in the background are the  mountains of the Sangre de Cristo (Spanish for "Blood of Christ") the  southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. This range runs from  Poncha Pass in South-Central Colorado, trending southeast and south, and  ends at the Glorieta Pass, just southeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

This range used  to be called "La Sierra Nevada", "La Sierra Madre", "La Sierra", and  "The Snowies" (used by English speakers). In 1719 the Spanish explorer  Antonio Valverde y Cosio named the range Sangre de Cristo ("Blood of  Christ") mountains after being impressed by the reddish hue of the snowy  peaks at sunrise, alpenglow.

On the right side of this image  is Mount Herald with its 13340 ft / 4066 m peak. Below this is the Great  Sand Dunes National Park, containing the tallest sand dunes in North  America which rise to a maximum height of 750 feet / 229 m, from the  floor of the San Luis Valley on the western base of the Sangre de Cristo  Range. The dunes cover an area of about 19,000 acres / 7,700 ha. 

Researchers say that the dunes started forming less than 440,000 years  ago and were created from sand and soil deposits of the Rio Grande and  its tributaries, flowing through the San Luis Valley. Over  ages, the glaciers that fed the river and vast lake that existed across  the valley melted away, and the water evaporated. Westerly winds picked  up the exposed remaining sand particles from the dry lake and river  flood plain.

As the wind eventually lost power prior to  crossing the Sangre de Cristo Range, the sand was deposited on the east  edge of the valley, creating the piled up dunes we see today. This  process still continues, and the dunes are slowly growing. The wind  changes the shape of the dunes daily as it continues to move sand from  the middle of the valley northward. 

Behind the dunes there is a  small creek that runs through that pass to the left of Mount Herald,  this is called Sand Creek . In the pass there is a small but pointed  peak sticking up in the distance right below the clouds on the horizon,  that is Blueberry Peak. 

Following the ridgeline and continuing  up to the left is Cleveland Peak 13,420 ft / 4091 m. Immediately to the  left of that is Tijeras Peak at 13604 ft / 4146 m. This is followed by  Music Mountain at 13380 ft / 4078 m and then Pico Asilado at 13611 ft /  4148 m. 

Further to the left is Broken Hand Peak at 13573 ft /  4137 m, Broken Hand was named for one the West’s most famed mountain men  and fur trappers, Thomas “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick, an important figure  in the fur trade and westward exploration of the mid-1800s. 

He led two  wagon trains on the Oregon Trail and negotiated one of the biggest  agreements with the First Nations Tribes at the time, the Fort Laramie  treaty of 1851. He had acquired his nickname early in his career when a  rifle misfired and exploded, crippling his left hand. The moniker  “Broken Hand” was bestowed on him by the Nez Percé.

Moving on  to the left along the mountain tops we next come to venerable Crestones,  a cluster of high summits in the Sangre de Cristo Range, here we have  Humboldt Peak at 14064 ft / 4287 m, and then Crestone Needle at 14197 ft  / 4327 m and Crestone Peak at 14294 ft / 4357 m.

And to the  far left we have Columbia Point at 13980 ft / 4261 m, then Kit Carson  Mountain at 14165 ft / 4317 m. This was named after the famed pioneer  and explorer Kit Carson. 

And finally the last large mountain  on the far left of this image is Challenger Point at 14081 ft / 4291 m.  The summit is on the northwest shoulder of Kit Carson Mountain, and is a  subpeak of the latter. It was renamed in memory of the seven astronauts  who died when the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated shortly after  liftoff on January 28, 1986 

I lensed this image while on my way to land at the ranch to visit my friend Duke Phillips, the flying cowboy. 

This is from "Where Eagles Fly - The American Wilderness   Expedition" my personal project of exploration in the North American  Wilderness.  

This is my mission to raise awareness of our Iconic   Natural Heritage Treasures of North America.   

If you wish to help my expedition then please spread the word and share these images of our amazing planet, please resteemit !   Yehaw!!