No, it's not snow! White Sands National Park

 

After driving through a lot of very flat, arid country on the way from Arizona to New Mexico we arrived in Las Cruces two days ago. We had planned to stay there for two nights and hike in the Organ Mountain range nearby yesterday, driving to White Sands National Park today. After reading the weather forecast we changed our minds: a lot of wind was forecast for today, which would make it very unpleasant to walk on dunes with fine sand. Quickly we decided to omit the Organ mountains and visit White Sands yesterday.

That proved to be a very wise choice. We spent a beautiful day in these unique surroundings, for the most part without hardly any wind; only in the afternoon it picked up somewhat but still didn't pose a problem.

When we arrived, shortly before noon, cars were bumper to bumper along the entrance road into the park, and the parking lot around the visitor centre was quite full. We stopped there first for some information and a map and watched the short film about the park. These films in national park visitor centres are always worth watching, we have found, and here, too, we were not disappointed. It's nice to have some idea about a park's flora, fauna, geology and history beforehand, and the video footage is beautiful. We learned, for instance, that animals have adapted to the white surroundings by becoming lighter than their relatives in surrounding areas without the white sand. Plants, too, have developed amazing survival mechanisms in these harsh and very special surroundings.

While we saw some examples of the latter we didn't find any lizards on our 8km hike along the Alkali Flat trail, much as I kept my eyes open. It didn't need that to have me walk with a constant sense of wonder, however: I never experienced a landscape like this before! “Alkali Flats” was the suggestion for a hike by the park ranger we talked to, her own favourite (and the longest in the park), “but there is nothing flat about it.” She certainly was right! The trail, if you can call it that, was a constant climbing up and down dunes, some gently sloped, others quite steep, so that we needed to find a not too sheer climb or drop-off to scale them. We were warned to always keep the next marker in sight in order not to get lost: these dune fields are huge, and it would be very easy to lose your way. “If you don't see a marker,” the ranger impressed on us, “turn around. They sometimes blow over, and we had pretty strong winds yesterday.” Bringing enough water, a hat and sunscreen/sunglasses is also very important, of course.

On the first part of the trail we still saw a lot of people, many of them sliding down the dunes on sleds you can buy at the visitor centre. This is a major fun thing to do here, especially for the kids. We kept going, however, always looking for the next marker, slogging up dunes through loose sand, walking along the ridges on slightly firmer underground. In the flats between the dunes hardy plants grow, at this time of year and without any recent moisture looking dead but ready to spring to life with the monsoon rains in summer. We were quite sure we'd have enough time to complete the loop before it was time for the sunset stroll with a ranger at six, but it's really hard to keep a sense of distance under these conditions. At some point we reached the big expanse of what had once been a lake. Here, a sign warned not to continue because we would have entered military restricted area. The markers indicated a turn, so we assumed we were now at about the half way mark, maybe a bit less. From now on the descent down the dunes was steeper, with loose sand, while the walk uphill was easier since the sand was firmer. I realized that this was not so different than walking in snow at home: if you watch for it you can spot quite well the drifts that will hold your weight best – just that there was no breaking through here in the sand, something that can always happen with a snow drift.

Not many people had chosen this trail; we saw only a group of about ten people a fair bit ahead of us. Every once in awhile they appeared on top of a dune, then they were out of sight again for a while. Walking single file, they looked like an arctic expedition from the distance. While the markers indicated the route to take, the tracks of people who had gone before us were most helpful to find the easiest way to get up and down the dunes. Sooner than we expected we heard the happy, excited voices of the sledders again: we were close to the parking lot after a good three hours of walking.

We read and had a nap in the car while we waited for the sunset stroll with the ranger at six. An unexpectedly large group of people were gathered to take that in: it's probably the busiest time of the year in the park right now, spring break time all over the country and still cool enough to enjoy the desert. We heard a bit more about the geology and adaptive behaviour of plants, about the human history of the place as well, and it ended in time for people to enjoy the sunset from the top of a dune.

Truly, New Mexico deserves its name 'Land of Enchantment'!