White Sands National Monument

I have no idea where the notion came from, but the instigator of this trip was White Sands National Monument. I knew I wanted to go. I didn't know anything about it, except it was the largest gypsum crystal desert in the world and I wanted to see it. Once we realized how much other cool stuff was in New Mexico, it was an easy choice to start our fall trip in this state.  

If your're wondering where White Sands is, well, it's in the middle of a military installation. No kidding. It is completely surrounded by White Sands Missile Range and Holloway Air Force Base. The first atomic bomb was dropped at Trinity Site, at the north end of the missile range. You can visit the site only two days a year. The government doesn't want to take time off from testing missiles it would seem. We just missed the October date by 2 weeks. Better luck next time. The bummer about being so close to this all action, jet noise...lots of jet noise. We were hiking miles into the dunes and could still hear them. There are signs leading to the park that warn you the highway and park can be closed at times for missile testing, for several hours.

So about those dunes.....what makes White Sands white? Gypsum. Lots of gypsum crystals. Apparently gypsum is rare in sand, because it's water soluble and would normally be dissolved by rain and washed into a waterway. However, there is no outlet to a sea for the gypsum of White Sands, thanks to surrounding mountain ranges. So groundwater and rain evaporates and leaves gypsum on the surface in areas to the south and west of the dunes, including Alkali Flat and Lake Lucero. The gypsum becomes a crystalline form called selenite. Apparently there are some crystals that reach up to 3 feet in lengths! Weathering and erosion eventually break the crystals into sand-sized grains that are picked up by prevailing winds from the southwest, forming white sand dunes. 

These dunes are so cool. You can sled on them. You put your hand into the sand and it's almost sticky, since gypsum retains moisture. The dunes build and retreat up to 30 feet a year. There are just 4 hiking trails in the park, the longest being 5 miles, and are marked with trail signs about every 200 ft. With the volume of moving dunes, having a well marked trail is a necessity. The dunes all look the same and it wouldn't be hard to get lost in them.

There are critters that live in the dunes, but they are elusive. As you can imagine, an animal on a white sand dune would be ripe for the picking by a predator. Many have evolved to be much lighter in colour, than their relatives not in White Sands, but they are still targets, so come out at night, rarely by day. We saw lots of footprints, from birds to mice to foxes, but the only sighting was a dead tarantula. 

So, here's just a whole bunch of photos. We could have photographed here all day long; it's an unbelievably unique landscape that you have to see to believe. You wouldn't think a desert could be all that interesting, but White Sands is very different from any desert I'd even been in.