Mesquite Sand Dunes is located within Death Valley National Park and it is the only place that has sand dunes within the park. It is about 30 minutes North of Furnace Creek visitor center and easily accessible. The sand at Mesquite Sand Dunes is very thin and thus attracts tourists to come visit.
We got to Mesquite Sand Dunes around noon and there was already a lot of people. It did not have a large parking lot, but we were lucky to find a parking space very quickly. Mesquite Sand Dunes occupied a much larger area than we thought. It took us a long time to hike all the way to the center of the sand dunes.
It was also quite difficult to hike on the sand. Especially when hiking uphill on the sand dunes, our feet would sink in and slip down a little. By walking on side ways, it made going uphill a bit easier.
On the information board, it indicated the reason why this was the only place with sand dunes. In order to create sand dunes, the wind must carry the sand to here and also need to have conditions to trap the sand here. Mesquite Sand Dunes was located in the middle of the valley surrounded by mountains, and thus trapped the sand here.
We hiked for a while and still couldn't reach a place where there was no other foot print. We were close by did not go any further. The East side of the sand dunes had much less crowd and it was a good place to go to take great photos.
While we were there, there were also people carrying slides to slide down the sand dunes.
In general, Mesquite Sand Dunes was a very interesting place to visit. It was rare for us to see sand dunes and thus we were very excited. One thing to note is to carry as much water as possible since it can get very hot at the sand dunes. In addition, there could be rattle snakes around the area and visitors need to be very careful. Next time when we visit, we might try to do a night hike at the sand dunes under the moon light.
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