White Sands National Park, NM (Part 2/2)
It feels as if we’re on another planet
I imagine that many people in their cars on I-70 point to the horizon and exclaim, “What in the world can that be?” (Bonus points for anyone able to identify that movie quote.)
It’s White Sands National Park.
We first stopped at the Visitors Center — as we always do in national parks — to pick up maps and speak to park rangers, buy a couple of stickers, and stamp my journal.
Then we drove into the park and gawked at the sight in front of us: miles and miles of white dunes, making the desert landscape suddenly look as if they were fields after the biggest snowstorm of the century, all impossibly white against the bluest skies. We felt a sense of cognitive dissonance because of the sensory contrasts: we felt chilly in the shade, but hot under the sun; we glimpsed brown and green mountains on the horizon but white dunes under our shoes; we saw many cars along the main road, while almost no one during our hikes. (Although the dunes look like snow in our pictures, they’re actually gypsum fields, deposited thousands of years ago during a process that began when this area was still underwater.)
Our first hike on the Backcountry Campground Loop Trail (loop, 2 miles) took us up and down the dunes, which, as the name suggests, contained individual camping sites in the hard-packed open spaces between dunes. Although tent camping was not allowed while we were there, the mere thought of the sight of a bright orange or neon green tent in this landscape made us smile.
Hiking on gypsum is pretty much like hiking on sand: depending on how dry the gypsum is, your shoes sink into the trail — sometimes up to your calf when going uphill — and you have to work hard to extract them each time you want to take another step. Wash-rinse-repeat. The novelty of the landscape distracted us from the fact that it was a pretty serious cardio workout.
Next was the Dune Life Nature Trail (loop, 1 mile), described as a family-friendly trail with signs for children to learn about animals in this habitat. Our hike began with our encounter of an animal of a peculiar kind, one clearly outside his comfort zone: a toddler was having a screaming meltdown and his mother, carrying a baby, looked both resigned and determined to let him tire himself out. Perhaps the toddler was upset that a majority of the informational signs along the trail were illegible, a direct result of the desert climate with its unrelenting sun and wind. I felt the toddler’s pain: I also felt like having a good scream every time I came to a sign and saw that its text and pictures had melted away. Mwahhhhhh!
***
We woke up to gorgeous clear skies and slightly warmer temperatures. From inside the van, with the sun beating down, it felt quite hot… and then, as soon as we opened the door, we reached for our coats. It was the oddest thing: we felt both hot and cold in this weird desert climate.
As we set off for our mission of the day, we could not help but notice around Alamogordo the colorful license plates in the great state of New Mexico: teal, orange, yellow, with different stripes and patterns that our best guess linked to Native American artistic traditions. (Comparatively, our home state license plates were blue letters on white background, boring and bland, with a silly motto.)
We went back to White Sands National Park today to hike the Alkali Flat Trail (loop, 5 miles), about which the Park Service app helpfully tells us, “This trail is not flat!” It’s basically going up and down sand dunes, but the effort is rewarded by absolutely phenomenal views of endless dunes and mountains, better than even those in the Backcountry Campground Loop. As a special bonus today, the Sacramento Mountains were capped with snow.
At first, both N. and I walked daintily, following the red trail blazes and trying not to get too much sand in our shoes. Up and down the dunes we went. It was impossible to hike continuously; every few steps we saw a sand dune, a pattern on the ground, a view of the mountains that deserved a photo.
Soon enough, we no longer cared whether we got sand in our shoes; we enjoyed making our own treks in the sand, going up or down on pristine paths away from other footprints. That meant that sometimes we would be up to our calves in sand, but we felt as if we were little kids again, playing in a gigantic sandbox. We stopped from time to time to take our shoes off and unload the sand that made them heavier.
Up and down the dunes we went.
Around Mile 2.5, we arrived at the edge of the dunes, to a vast flat basin at the foot of the San Andres Mountains. We saw a polite caution sign, warning us of “Unexploded Munitions Keep Out”, which I took as an empty threat. But as soon as the thought crossed my mind, there was a loud and deep boom, which could have been nothing other than a detonation. Yes, we knew the park was surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range, but we thought it was still rude of the government to be exploding munitions without warning. The park brochure did include a warning that it was sometimes closed with a 24-hour notice because of missile testing. So my line of thinking here was as follows:
(1) there were no plans for detonations that day because
(2) the public was in the park, but
(3) there was a boom, so
(4) there was a detonation, but
(5) the detonation must have been unplanned since
(6) the public was in the park
(7) THEREFORE,
(8) detonation was an accident!
I think I might have been a CSI in a previous life.
***
Up and down the dunes we went.
We saw few other hikers; it was as if we had the dunes to ourselves. So how deserted was it? So deserted that I convinced N. to dance to the tune of “Laxed”. We stopped for a picnic of leftovers and fruit — everything tastes good with such views.
Up and down the dunes we went.
I asked N. to take a video of me running down yet another dune; he rummaged through his pockets and yelped in a panic, “Wait! Where’s my phone?!?”
We had been hiking up and down dry gypsum sand, which avalanche-d with our steps: as soon as we stepped into sand up to our ankles and pulled our foot up for the next step, sand would slide and quickly cover the footprint we had just made. Chances were very good that N.’s phone had fallen out of his pocket and got buried in the sand.
As a general rule, it is very hard to see things buried in sand.
We would have to go back to Miramar Beach in Florida, track down one of those beach scavengers with metal detectors, and bring them to White Sands National Park. We tried not to hyper-ventilate as we retraced our steps and squinted into the horizon. Where to begin?
“Wait, you could call my phone!” N. exclaimed. He actually sounded proud of his idea.
I looked at him as if he were deranged. “There’s no signal here!”
Life is full of small mercies: his phone was lying on the flat — of Alkali Flat fame — between two dunes, where the sand is hard-packed because of moisture. We exclaimed a few foul expletives, mostly out of a sense of sheer relief, while the thought of what would have happened if his phone had indeed been buried in the dunes led to aftershocks of dread that didn’t fade for a few minutes.
Back at the trailhead. Although we had no real interest in sledding in the sand, it seemed a pity not to try. I carried the sled lent by our helpful camp host to the top of the dune of the parking lot — one is allowed to sled pretty much anywhere in the park, except in the “Unexploded Munitions” area, I’m guessing. Pro-tip: sledding can be fun, but if you want to do it again, you must be willing to hike back up the dune.
Before leaving the park, we took a break in a picnic area with peculiar shelters that were rocking a space-race-X-Files vibe — Roswell is close by.
On our drive back to Oliver Lee Memorial Park, at the side of the road on I-70, we saw a sign that warned, “Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers. Detention Facilities in the Area.” Two thoughts crossed our minds:
(1) good to know
(2) if the detention facility were doing its job properly, the sign would not have been necessary
