White Sands National Monument

Today we visited the White Sands National Monument. Thanks to our America the Beautiful pass, we saved $6 on the entrance fees. I can't believe they only charge $3 to see this gorgeous place!!

Welcome to White Sands!

White Sands is located in the Tularosa Basin, and is 275 square miles of pristine, white Gypsum sand dunes. It is also located in the middle of the Holloman Air Force Base and White Sands Missile Range. What this means is that occasionally the park is closed for up to 3 hours while they conduct missile testing! Today was not one of those days, and we had the park basically to ourselves.

The park itself is mainly comprised of the sand dunes, and you drive an 8 mile out and back Dune Drive to explore the park. There are several nature trails, and you are welcome to park along the Dune Drive and explore the dunes at will. There are lizard and insect tracks everywhere!

Lizard tracks

Dune Life Nature Trail

The sand is so white, you absolutely have to bring sun glasses and sun screen. It is also pretty cool to the touch, so you can take off your shoes and run around with no problems. If you bury your feet a foot into the sands, you discover much cooler sand, which serves as a natural coolant in the hot spring sun.

White Dunes

Sky, trying to sled on the dunes

We drove the Dunes Drive and then played on the sand dunes. Some are as tall as 60 feet, and you can buy sleds from the park shop, to sled down. Afterwards, we enjoyed the amazing scenery from the picnic tables.

Picnic tables

It was pretty surreal in the dunes, definitely a new experience!

Here is a video from the park:

See more pictures here.

Happy Dunes Exploring,

M.

P.S. After we got back to the RV park, we were standing inside the trailer when we heard a massive BOOM and the trailer shook. WTF? We found out it was a sonic boom, from the Air Force next door. This was my first sonic boom...and it was unnerving!