Out-of-Door Playgrounds of 
The SanIsabel National Forest Page Fourteen 
appears to the west and south the vista of the wide-spreading San 
Luis Valley, which in summer is a checkerboard of color, showing 
the blue-green of alfalfa, the yellow of grain stubble, the dark green 
of the pines, and the silvery gray of the sagebrush, with snow-capped 
peaks in the far distance. To the east and northeast is the Wet 
Mountain Valley, the rolling Wet Mountains, the Arkansas Hills, 
and the massive uplift of Pikes Peak. From the summit of Green- 
horn Mountain and the Spanish Peaks the eastern view is one of low 
rolling hills, checkered with farm lands, and of the Great Plains 
stretching to the far horizon. 
Natural Curiosities 
The Spanish Peaks, called Wahoatoya by the Indians and Los 
Dos Hermanos by the Spanish, consist of huge masses of hard volcanic 
rock which were thrust up through the softer sandstones and shales 
at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. A large number of narrow 
dikes branch out from the large masses like spokes of a wheel and 
extend in all directions for many miles from the foot of the peaks. 
In many places these dikes, owing to their hardness and freedom 
from disintegration, stand above the ground surface as narrow walls 
from 50 to 150 feet in height. 
The shifting sand hills near Liberty, at the southwest end of the 
Sangre de Cristo Range, are said to be the largest traveling inland 
sand dunes in the world. Many of the dunes are between 500 and 
1,000 feet in height. The whole area of the sand hills, which is abso- 
lutely devoid of vegetation, covers a tract 6 by 8 miles in extent. 
Flanked by valley Jands on the west and timbered mountain slopes 
on the east, it furnishes a unique and interesting sight. These dunes 
may be reached by wagon from Crestone, 15 miles, or Alamosa, 30 
miles away. 
