After our visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park, with its dark volcanic sands derived from the surrounding mountains and its cold, biting winds, we headed south to White Sands National Park. It was great to be able to wear short sleeves and have to worry about sunburn rather than covering up from the cold wind driving sand in our faces.

White Sands was named as a National Monument in 1933. It was designated a National Park in 2019. The white sand dunes are composed of gypsum crystals created when rain and snowmelt dissolved gypsum from the surrounding mountains and carried it into the basin.  The gypsum dunes are the largest on Earth, with a depth of nearly 30 feet and as tall as 60 feet.

The park is large enough that we could get away from the few people that were there by just moving off of the footprints-in-the-sand trails winding through the white sand. It was interesting to explore the less visited small valleys surrounded by dunes, places where more vegetation could grow and evidence showed more critters living.

White Sands National Park was an interesting experience. The mountains hovering around in the distance provided quite the backdrop for the starkly white sand that seemed to stretch into the distance to them. We were there in November, but the sun reflecting off of the white sand was intense, and we could definitely see how slogging through the sand in warmer months would be very hot.

We explored WSNP, enjoying the warmth after the low of 16 degrees in southern Colorado as well as the park itself; mountain ranges framing the starkly white sands, small valleys with hardy bits of life trying to make a living, and just the quiet of the park. However, when we stopped at the visitor’s center on the way out of the park we found it mostly closed up, of course, due to the Big C. The new reality was back in our faces, and we had a lot of miles to go to get home…

We headed out of the park and took a big left turn, headed towards Texas and eventually home. We were sad to have to leave New Mexico and all of its beauty behind, but luckily NM had one more scenic thrill for us.

Next: On to Cloudcroft and a great view