{"id":2444035,"date":"2019-05-10T10:50:14","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T16:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=305633"},"modified":"2019-05-10T10:50:14","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T16:50:14","slug":"great-sand-dunes-national-park-recognized-as-an-international-dark-sky-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/great-sand-dunes-national-park-recognized-as-an-international-dark-sky-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Sand Dunes National Park recognized as an International Dark Sky Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/05\/Great-Sand-Dunes-1024x576.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/05\/Great-Sand-Dunes-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/05\/Great-Sand-Dunes-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/05\/Great-Sand-Dunes-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/05\/Great-Sand-Dunes.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>The Milky Way over Great Sand Dunes National Park.<\/strong><br \/><em>Patrick Myers, National Park Service<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A southern Colorado destination for star gazers for decades, the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve has been recognized as an International Dark Sky Park.<\/p>\n<p>Great Sand Dunes joins three other national park&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theknow.denverpost.com\/2019\/04\/22\/dinosaur-national-monument-darkness\/213715\/\">sites in Colorado&nbsp;<\/a>and about two dozen national parks around the country in being designated International Dark Sky Parks, the National Park Service said in a Thursday news release.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s no surprise that Great Sand Dunes has been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2017\/10\/29\/international-dark-sky-association-designations-national-parks-fighting-light-pollution\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"(opens in a new tab)\">building a reputation for good night sky viewing<\/a>,\u201d said Pamela Rice, park superintendent, in the release. \u201cThe dry air, high elevation, and lack of light pollution all make the park an ideal dark-sky destination. We are thrilled with receiving this recognition as an International Dark Sky Park.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The designation, by the International Dark-Sky Association, recognizes the park, northeast of Alamosa, for its efforts and commitments to preserving \u201cthe exceptional quality of its dark night skies,\u201d the release stated.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theknow.denverpost.com\/2019\/05\/09\/great-sand-dunes-dark-sky-park\/214974\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Read the full story about the international designation at denverpost.com. (opens in a new tab)\">Read the full story about the international designation at denverpost.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/great-sand-dunes-national-park-recognized-as-an-international-dark-sky-park\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Milky Way over Great Sand Dunes National Park.Patrick Myers, National Park Service A southern Colorado destination for star gazers for decades, the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve has been recognized as an International Dark Sky Park. Great Sand Dunes joins three other national park&nbsp;sites in Colorado&nbsp;and about two dozen national parks around [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2444035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 01:21:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}