Memorial Weekend – Part I : Kelso Dunes
I made a detailed plan for our memorial long weekend. Since it’s going to be really hot after a few months, I decided to visit Arizona before summer hits. I came across a gorgeous photo taken around Kelso Dunes, which happened to be a dog friendly trail (woohoo!) so I dropped a pin here for our first stop before going into Arizona.
Kelso Dunes
- Route : Out and back
- Length : 2.7 mi
- Elevation : 423 ft
We arrived at the location at 5pm, which I think it’s a perfect time to visit. I read some posts on the internet, people do complain about the heat here. Well, its desert and obviously there will be no shade. Walking this trail while the sun is low could be your best bet.
There is no obvious trail to walk on, but dunes are hard to miss just right in front. No matter if you are following people’s footprints or just walk straight toward the dunes, you will eventually get to the “summit”.
After the first mile, It turns into a tough ascent.
The view was truly something else after we reached the ridge line of the dunes.
There’s a short walk to the top of the dunes, TT managed to walk on loose sand very well.
You can see the expanse of the dunes snaking down to the desert from here, isn’t this view gorgeous?
I finally bought a hydration backpack and a pair of real hiking boots. I tend to be really weak at making my commitments when it comes to buying things. I am that kind of person who rather pays day passes instead of buying a monthly card for gym uses. Even if we’ve been hiking for years, I thought we don’t really go on difficult hikes so I never thought it’s justified to own gears until now. Having a bag would have made my life way easier if I made this purchase earlier. Wearing actual hiking gears made hiking on the sand enjoyable.
It’s a shame there were already a couple occupied the best spot when we reached the summit. We asked them to let us jump in the front for some photos, but the rest of the time we had to sit at the back end.
We stayed at the top until sunset, the sand was so perfect that I didn’t even want to walk over there to destroy the surface.
After the sun sank, instead of walking on the ridge back, I decided to directly slide down the slope. The sand was very deep and soft as clouds, I could barely feel anything going down. Sliding down like that was way too much fun that I wish I could do it again with a piece of cardboard to sit on.
After we did this fun crazy move, people after us followed up 🙂
It was pitch black when I realized I lost my cell phone. I circled back to try to find it with no luck, and didn’t dare to walk too far out because it would be even worse to get lost in the desert at night with TT. We managed to walk back to the trailhead with no visible light, there was a second I wanted to use my phone as a flashlight… oh well 🙁 It’s gone.
Thankfully my car has a built in navigation, I made a hard decision to drive back to LA because that’s the only address I could remember. All my motel confirmations and trip details were on cloud, I thought about finding a nearby Fedex center so I would have access to the internet, but it’s 10pm and we were in the middle of nowhere. I was also too scared to travel alone without a phone.
It’s a shame I ended our whole Arizona plan like this. I also feel terrible knowing how heavily I relied on technology. Even now a day, I never stop thinking about what would be a better decision to make instead of calling the trip off. If this ever happens to us again(hope not), probably I will make a decision to sleep in the car and go back to dig my phone out the next morning.
I lost tons of photos and videos I took at Kelso Dunes, but I am glad me and TT are safe.
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