White Sands Natl Park - Oct 2005

What a unique setting! Miles and miles of pure white sand, but not an ocean in sight.

White Sands National Park, located near Alamogordo, New Mexico, is the largest gypsum dune field in the world. The park is huge, 275 square miles to be exact, and so it's easy to find your very own private dune and romp and play to your heart's content. All of us, dogs included, spent the day running around, climbing up, sliding down and generally cavorting like kids on the dunes. The weather was perfect -- sunny and warm and we were glad we weren't visiting in the heat of the summer. That said, we did learn an interesting fact about the sand -- since it's so white, it reflects much of the light and heat, so even on a very hot summer day, the sand will still be cool to the touch.

The uniqueness of White Sands National Park comes from a combination of things -- a geological event that created a basin with no place for the water runoff to go, lots of gypsum in the surrounding mountains, a lake in the basin where gypsum crystals are created, winds blowing across the crystals creating sand and sand trapped in the basin creating dunes.

Most of the dune fields are open to the public with the exception of Lake Lucero -- the source of the gypsum crystals. The lake is at the southernmost corner of the park and the only road to it goes through the very highly guarded White Sands Missile Range. One day a month, the park offers a guided tour of the lake and we just had to check it out. Early in the morning, we drove to the entrance to the Missile Range and then our car caravan group (about 30 cars) was registered and instructed on the rules for traveling through the range -- do not stop, do not take photographs, do not use cell phones and stay in line until reaching the park's boundary. Then, with a front and rear escort, our caravan drove 18 miles to the park's boundary and parked at the trailhead to the lake. From there we went on a ranger led hike down to the lake then they let us wander around on our own for about an hour before we had to return to our cars and were escorted back out of the Missile Range.

Ok, so Lake Lucero is really not much of a lake. In fact, it's only got water in it a few times a year, but it's not the water that makes it neat it's the crystals that have been left behind after the water has evaporated -- now those were really cool. On our visit we could still see standing water at a distance, but the ranger warned us that if we tried to go out by the water, we might as well kiss our shoes goodbye because the mud would be up to our calves before ever reaching the water. A few unbelieving souls slogged their way over to check it out and sure enough, they sunk up to their knees in mud and had to turn back before ever getting close to the water.

The rest of us wandered around the crystal littered sand and had a great time as if we were kids hunting down treasures. There were crystals everywhere and each cluster had a different size, shape and color. They varied in color from clear as glass to dark amber and some were as large as a shoe box. The crystals were made up of very thin layers that were very fragile, so they easily broke apart. Some crystals grew into long, flat pancakes and others grew up out of the sand in elegant, fan-shaped formations. The sunlight bounced off thousands of tiny facets and made the whole area glitter and shimmer. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it, but alas, my camera "corrects" reflections, so it wasn't possible to capture this really cool effect.

We wandered around the area -- our feet crunching on the crystal covered dry lake -- and examined all kinds of specimens. Frank is holding several crystals -- all different shapes and colors and all very pretty. Of course, we had to leave everything behind -- the park does not allow you take home souvenirs.