White Sands National Monument (Redux)

The start of my return journey home begins with a short cruise east from Las Cruces on US-70 to White Sands National Monument.

Known for its very rare almost pure white sand dunes, it seems almost out of place compared to the other local landscape.  Interesting fact: at 275 square miles, it is the largest gypsum dune field in the world.

I hiked about 1/2 mile in barefoot and surveyed the landscape.  Today was almost windless and the silence was peaceful.  Most of the trails were closed due to being off-season so no longer walks without a backcountry permit (or so I was told).

When I visited here in 2011 with my family we spent time sledding down the hills on saucers just like sledding snow in winter. No sledding for me this time, but as you can see from the footsteps and saucer paths on the dunes many other visitors were.

I walked the dunes just for a short while until I stopped seeing so many footprints, and could get a closer look at the San Andres mountains in the distance. It’s a bit windy today and that haze in the distance I believe is sand.

I tried taking a panorama with my iPhone 6S and it turned out just okay but does help show just how vast the white sand desert stretches on the horizon.

Heading to Amarillo, TX for the night to rest before the next section of driving. Likely passing through Kansas City, MO after that.

Adios to the Land Of Enchantment until next time.

Author’s note: I am revisiting old posts from my 2016 road trip because I posted all of them from my cell phone and some of them are a bit of a mess. Main reason is to properly edit photos rather than just having what came out of my phone camera, and to include higher res photos from my mirrorless camera that never got published. Additionally some of the locations on the Geomap are wrong or often have multiple locations in a single post. OG text should be captured in a summary field when available.