White Sands National Park

Ted. One morning, Judy and I drove 40 miles east of Las Cruces, over San Augustin Pass into Tularosa Basin to see the famous white sands. 

Most of the basin is controlled by the military. The national park is surrounded by Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range. About 40% of the sand dunes were protected as a national monument in 1933, and those 228 square miles became a national park in 2019. 

Formed about 1,000 years ago, the dunes are not your typical silica sand. The intense white crystals are actually gypsum which is a soft mineral known to most of us as the main ingredient in plaster and sheetrock. Interestingly, we learned that the dunes are actually expanding.

 Entering the dune area one experiences something akin to snow blindness. Leaving our truck to walk a trail through the dunes did not get any easier on the eyes.

The road through the dunes

What we experienced was much like cross-country skiing; a world of white with a stark blue sky. We sometimes walked along the tops of dunes but occasionally dipped down into the valleys, which is where the plants and animals cling to life. Unfortunately, the only wildlife we saw on our visit was children sledding down the dunes.

We have visited Great Sand Dunes NP in Colorado and Erg Chebbi in Morocco. Those dunes are formed from normal sand which may explain why they are much taller - up to 750' tall versus 60' maximum in White Sands. Still, these white, white sands are unlike anything we have ever seen before and we were very happy that we took the opportunity.

Climbing a dune

Trail markers are important

Life finds a way!