Sonya's Blog - Day 247 - White Sands National Monument

Sonya’s Blog - Day 247 - February 24th - White Sands National Monument

We left Carlsbad this morning and drove to Alamogordo. We were soon in the mountains and you could see that snow had fallen here, instead of the rain that we got. It was very pretty.

This is what it was like where we were camping in Carlsbad. You can see snow peaks in the distance, not sure which mountains those are:

We drove through a part of the Lincoln National Forest, in the Sacramento Mountain Range of New Mexico. It was a gradual ascent into the mountains, I think the peak may have been the town of Cloudcroft. Our descent into Alamogordo was very steep!

During our descent into Alamogordo:

The drive took us just over 3 hours and we arrived at the campground around noon. This gave us plenty of time to have lunch and then head out to White Sands to check it out. When we were checking in, the front desk told us we could borrow sleds from them to sled down the sand dunes. Really? Who knew?

We got all set up and had our lunch and then headed to White Sands at about 2 PM. We grabbed some sleds (they also gave us some wax) and hit the road. When we got to White Sands, we stopped at the Visitor’s Centre to see what the rules are (about tobogganing and also, if we could walk around with Kizmet). Well they don’t call it tobogganing here, just sledding). We watched a short film about White Sands, found out we can sled wherever there is a parking lot and Kizmet is welcome to join us, as long as she is on leash.

White Sands National Monument is miles and miles of white sand dunes in the middle of New Mexico. The reason the sand is white is because it is from gypsum, which naturally forms in the mountains here. The gypsum gets washed away when it rains and forms into sand, hence the sand dunes. White Sands has only been around for about 3000 years and is the largest gypsum dune field in the world. Cool.

We drove into the park and took the scenic drive. Isaac was dying to get on his sled, but we wanted to check it out first. It is miles and miles of white sand, blindingly white. When we were driving on the road, which was covered in white sand, it reminded us of driving to ski resorts. White sand on both sides and the sand on the road, looked a lot like snow.

We stopped at an empty parking lot that had some higher sand dunes and went to try out the sleds. First we waxed up:

Then we ascended and made a go of it. Well, there is a lot of friction and you don’t exactly fly down the dune. The lady at the visitor’s centre told us it works better if you make a path and continue using the same one. We did get some speed, but it was work. There was steeper dune across the way, so we headed over there. This was much better.

Moving much faster on the steeper dune:

We were all having fun and Kizmet was pretty excited. The kids got ahead of me to the next sand dune and Kizmet pulled away from me. She started racing towards them, then looped towards the sand and took a huge mouthful of it! She must have thought it was snow or something. Well, she was gagging and making funny faces trying to get the sand out of her mouth. What a nut! She didn’t do that again.

We stayed for about an hour and then continued on the scenic drive through the park. We had forgotten to bring water, hats and sunscreen, so we didn’t want to stay long. It wasn’t super warm, only 12 or so, but the sun was blinding out on the dunes. We will be better prepared tomorrow and stay longer. They recommend a gallon of water, per person, when you are out in the desert.

We headed back to camp to have supper. We were all pretty tired after supper, so we turned in pretty early.

Sonya