GREAT SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK- At the Great Sand Dunes National Park, Fred Bunch, the park resources manager, faces a conundrum. He wants to make the night quieter, the skies darker, and increase visitor traffic.

The dunes lie in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. They rise out of the landscape between snow-capped mountains and a flat plain, seeming like a part of another planet.

Established as a National Park in 2004, the Great Sand Dunes are estimated to be about 400,000 years old.

On a hot summer day, the dunes shimmer in the sunlight as people slide down their curves and splash into Medano Creek, flowing through the base. Lines stretch so far down the long, straight road that the park had to install another bathroom halfway down for those waiting.

Bunch, along with the rest of the park’s employees, is working to preserve this swathe of beautiful land. But how do park employees conserve the land while valuing recreation?

The dunes are the place where “half the park is after dark”. The catchy slogan refers to the clarity of their night skies and the quiet of the nights. Pictures reveal incredible views of the Milky Way, the Big Dipper, and several other notable constellations.

“Any degradation of silence is very noticeable,” says Bunch before imitating the elk bugling calls he hears some nights.

Bunch explains how he uses a tool called a Sky Quality Meter to measure darkness. The Great Sand Dunes often measures about a 22 (in magnitude/arc seconds squared) and is noted as one of the darkest parks in the country. The highest the quality meter measures is a 23.

Measuring darkness along with cutting down on their own light pollution are some of the Park’s many efforts to earn the title of International Dark Sky Park (IDSP).

Becoming an IDSP would do more than let the dunes join an elite group of other parks. By working to preserve their night skies, the dunes would help both the natural habitat and their visitors. In settings with artificial light, nocturnal animals, including the kangaroo rat, owls, and coyotes, can be led off course or deprived of the darkness they need to hunt. Humans often have sleep disturbances because their circadian rhythms are disrupted by light pollution, leading to obesity and depression.

“It’s inspiration. It’s something greater than the dunes,” said Fred Bunch, passionate about preserving the night skies that blanket the park. Scientists seem to agree. Every year people come from all over to study the dunes. The otherworldly quality of the dunes makes them comparable to dunes on Titan, a moon of Saturn.

The Night Sky programs, led by park rangers, are popular with tourists as well. “They fill up fast,” Bunch said, “People love having something different to do at night.”

Exposing people to the clear night skies of the Dunes can bring revenue to a suffering economy. In 2017, the dunes as an attraction  brought $29 million to the local economy and created 408 jobs directly related to tourism. Visitors increased from 238,000 in 2013 to 486,000 in 2017, according to National Park data.

In order to bring even more profits to the area, Bunch is trying to increase the geographic diversity and length of stay of visitors.

After first riding to the dunes on a bicycle in 1968 to camp and now, as the Park Resources Manager, Bunch understands the importance of preserving the pristine nature of the park while making it an accessible and fun place for people to visit. He hopes to pass the park down as a special place from generation to generation.

“We aren’t changing things, or managing things, we are protecting,” he said.

“We want people to look at the park and think ‘What year is it?’”