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As much as we could have stayed in camp and marveled at our view of the Granite Mountains all day, the sunny skies seemed to be taunting us to get moving, so we headed down the road to our next destination, Kelso Dunes.

Note: This story is part of the series South to Spring. Click the link or head to our timeline for the other chapters of the trip.

At about 600 feet tall and sprawling over about 45 square miles the Kelso dunes are a sight to behold, especially from the top.

Set next to the Providence mountains that rise rugged and rocky out of the Mojave Desert they are quite a contrast from the landscape that they sit in. Where does all this sand come from?

It is obviously shaped and reshaped by wind. But what forces keep it all here? It would be interesting to see a multi year time lapse of these dunes to see how they change over time.

We did climb to the top and took in the views for a while, then we circled around to see a bit more of the dunes. Off the beaten track that most follow up and back from the trailhead we started to see more signs of life: coyote and fox tracks, and snake trails replaced footprints.

The recent storm had reset the sand, erasing most disturbances and creating new patterns and shapes.

We eventually made our way down off the dunes. Our time on the Mojave Preserve was winding down.

We made a quick stop at the Kelso Station. Being closed for renovations, this once bustling stop has seen busier days. It was nice to have it all to ourselves.

We didn’t go far to start looking for our last camp on the preserve, but you’d think we traveled to another planet. We entered the land of cinder cones and lava beds, quite a contrast to our previous night among the granite boulders, or our day walking the dunes.

This would be our last night on the Mojave Preserve for this trip. We’ve now crossed the preserve on the Mojave Trail, and this trip showed us the diversity of the landscape in its mountains, cactus gardens, dunes and lava flows, but it still feels like we’ve only scratched the surface. I guess we’ll have to start marking up the map for where we’ll explore on our next visit.

Fly me to the moon? No thanks, I still have way to much to explore down here.