Trip Ideas National Parks Every Year the Snow Melt Creates an Amazing Natural Waterslide at Great Sand Dunes National Park By Talia Avakian Talia Avakian Website Talia Avakian is a lifestyle reporter with nearly a decade of experience writing digital and print content for noted national and international travel publications. She began her career in travel reporting at BBC Travel, where she covered news and features of global destinations, later working as a travel reporter at Business Insider and as a digital news reporter for Travel + Leisure. During her time at Travel + Leisure, she has covered airlines, hotels, new product launches for travelers, natural phenomena travelers can witness, new experience launches, and more. Her work has also appeared in The Independent, Time, Food & Wine, Fortune, Essence, and Departures, among others. Talia is currently a freelance lifestyle reporter in Los Angeles, where she covers content ranging from outdoor getaways, hotels, and transportation to food and experiential offerings at destinations across the globe. She has gone behind the scenes with airlines to learn about flight attendant training, scaled remote mountainsides at far-flung hotels, gone inside the inner workers of Air Force jets, shared the history of Frank Sinatra's favorite New York restaurant hideaway, documented what life is like inside the world's largest residential airpark, and more. She loves discovering unknown perks travelers can access and adventures they can take part in no matter where they go, sharing inside looks at offerings from around the world to help every traveler get the best out of each journey. * 9+ years of experience working as a travel reporter * Stories published and syndicated across over 50 national and international publications * Appeared as a travel expert on Cheddar to discuss emerging travel trends * Received a master's degree in multimedia reporting from the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University Travel + Leisure Editorial Guidelines Published on June 3, 2019 Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: Getty Images For a few months each year, a natural phenomenon creates a rare waterslide at Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve’s Medano Creek, and the creek is now seeing the first signs of this year’s arrival. Medano Creek starts in snowfields in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, melting into Medano Lake and flowing around the basin of the area’s dunes, where it turns into a wide and shallow stream. The phenomenon, known as surge flow, occurs when snow at the peaks melts and trickles down to the sand ridges, creating underwater ridges in the sand that build up and break every 20 seconds to produce waves in the creek, park representatives explain in a video. While the peak flow of the phenomenon, where the creek experiences a flow at speeds of some 40 cubic feet per second, typically occurs in late May or early June, a wet and cold winter season has led to a slower melting rate and delayed peak date for 2019. While the creek is only experiencing a small surge flow at the moment, higher snowpack means visitors can look forward to flow increases within the next two weeks that will continue throughout June and taper off into shallow flows through July. The creek, which is often referred to as “Colorado’s natural beach,” is surrounded by the soaring dunes the area is known for, and opens to activities including surfing, wading, skimboarding, and even floating when water levels rise during surge flow season. Related: 13 Affordable Family Vacations to Take This Summer Families and visitors of all ages can often be seen setting up tents where they’ll enjoy outdoor picnics and sandcastle building after taking a dip in the creek, creating a relaxing escape to enjoy after exploring the park's forests, alpine lakes, and towering dunes. Visitors will want to note June is often a crowded time to visit the park with long lines of traffic, which is why park representatives recommend visiting on a weekday during the month. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit