Where the Winds and Shadows Are Free
The Algodones Dunes (a portion of which is known as the Imperial Sand Dunes) have always intrigued me. Over the years, I’ve driven the route that passes along this vast landscape of sweeping sand dunes, and I’ve never had the opportunity to stop until now. I was intending to go to the North Algodones Dunes Wilderness area as it is a protected area where only foot traffic is allowed (as opposed to other portions that are heavily trafficked at times by every variety of all terrain vehicle imaginable). I had limited time to work with as I had other places to be before the sun sank too low, and I somehow couldn’t find the access point to the North Dunes even after multiple passes of where it was said to be.
I was disappointed by this because I rerouted my travels in order to reach this place with the hopes of exploring and experiencing this unique form of desert. After realizing that, for whatever reason, I wasn’t finding the North Dunes access point, I was about to get back on the road and leave the dunes behind, but instead, I found my way to a hilltop viewing area on the ATV side of the dunes. There was a small parking area at the top where I decided I’d at least get out of my vehicle and look around for a moment. I’m glad that I did.
The moment I stepped out of my car I was hit with wind blown sand being driven by high winds (over 35 mph gusts on that day). There weren’t any ATVs in sight, probably due to the winds. There were plenty of motorhomes out, but the vehicles were parked outside their tightly shut doors. The dunes were empty—they were free.
I had to squint against the blowing sand as it pelted my skin and embedded itself into the fabric of my clothes and into my hair, but something about this place still stirred a curiosity within me. Stepping off the parking lot and onto the sand, I made may way out along a ridge of the dunes and began to wander amidst the landscape.
I didn’t go far. But I let myself walk a few rises and fall of the dunes. I let my movement flow with the curves of the sand, following ridges and slopes. Such simplicity existed here, and yet it had a song all of its own—wind blowing free, shapes in a state of constant change, sand sweeping up steep slopes and then whirling against the open sky or rippling across the flats, sunlight spreading out over wide areas and shadows finding rest everywhere else.
“What is it about this place that fascinates me so much?” I kept asking myself.
It seemed odd to me that it was stirring so much within me. After all, wasn’t it just heaps of sand being blowing in the wind. But it was so much more than that, and eventually, I stopped trying to figure it out. Eventually, I just let the place be.
I let myself be.
And then every gust and whip of the wind, every grain of sand set whirling through the air, and every rise and fall of the dunes suddenly seemed so perfect and complete. In spite of the random and chaotic shifting and swirling all around, it all just made sense as if it were a thing expected.
I was a visitor to this desert land, but a part of me felt as if I could close my eyes and become part of the wind and the sand, the sunlight and the shadow, the vast and open expanse. Free.