On January 28, 1807, Lt. Zebulon Pike and his small band of tattered, hungry, foot-sore soldiers camped near here after crossing the snowy Sangre de Cristo Mountains while exploring the southwestern boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase under orders from General James Wilkinson to locate the Arkansas and Red Rivers. As he descended the mountains, Pike became the first person known to describe the Great Sand Dunes in writing, recording sandy hills at the foot of the White Mountains that stretched about 15 miles along the range and appeared to be about 5 miles wide, with the appearance of the sea in a storm and no vegetation. Pike had followed a brook west to Sand Creek and believed it and then a large river he saw through the plain to be the Red River, but a few days later, while camped along the Rio Grande, which he had mistaken for the Red River, Spanish soldiers informed him he was trespassing on Spanish territory and escorted him and his men to Chihuahua, Mexico, before they later returned to Louisiana.