Gosh, February is over, where did it go? We celebrated the last day of the month in fine style with a trip up to the White Sands National Monument. If you’ve never been there, make sure you plan a trip to visit. It is located at the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert between the White Sands Missile Range and Holloman AFB in the Tularosa Basin in New Mexico. 275 square miles of gypsum sand in dunes that look like a snow covered landscape. It is the largest gypsum dune field in the world and according to the ranger, is visible from outer space.
Gypsum sand
We hiked the 4½ mile Alkali Flats Trail, taking about 2 ½ hours to complete it. Probably could have done it in less time, but kept taking time out to stare open-mouthed at the scenery. According to the brochures there are four types of dunes at White Sands: dome, barchan, transverse and parabolic, and believe me, we hiked them all!
Dome dunes form downwind and can move 30 feet a year. They’re formed when the wind blows across picking up gypsum particles and carries them downwind. As sand grains accumulate, they bounce up the gentle windward slope and ripple the surface. At the dune’s steep leading edge, sand builds up until gravity pulls it down the slip face, moving the dune forward.
Dome dune with wind ripples
Teresa standing on the edge of a dome dune (for size reference she's 5 ft 10 inches)
Dome dune
Barchan dunes are crescent shaped dunes that form where winds are strong but the sand supply is limited.
Barchan dune
Transverse dunes are formed where sand supples are ample and barchan dunes join together as long ridges of sand.
Transverse Dunes
The last type are parabolic dunes. These are where plants on the dune field edges anchor the arms of barchan dunes and invert their shape.
Parabolic dune
Ok, enough geology, this is a REALLY cool place and a must see! If it's not already on your 1,000 places to see before you die list, add it!! But be sure to walk the trails and not just drive the road as there is so much to see. And if you're lucky, you too can look like this at the end of the trail.
Heinz has been checking out all the RV's along the trip. We found this rig at the White Sands Park - it appears the Germans have a slightly different take on what constitutes and adequate RV.
After leaving White Sands it was quite obvious that we would never make it to Guadalupe National Park on the same day (200 miles away), so we decided on a short detour to just above Tularosa instead and dropped in on the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site on the edge of the Mescalero Indian Reservation. There we hiked another mile or so up into the rocks to view the petroglyphs. Once again, quoting from the trail guide, there are estimated to be 21,000+ petroglyphs in the area by the Jornada Mogollon Indians. The trail past the petroglyphs is around 1.2 miles, making it a total of 5.7 miles that we hiked today - and we feel it!
We decided to extend our stay in El Paso another day and check out the Guadalupe National Park today since there was no time on Monday.
This park is designated as a wilderness park, so 47,000 of the 94,000 acres is not open to anything but back country camping. The park has over 80 miles of trails, but we only took advantage of 6.8 miles of that (round trip). We hiked the McKittrick Canyon trail. The trail starts down in the desert and moves up through canyon woodland and up into the highland forest. It is also the only part of the park that has water year-round. The trail was rocky, but moving through 3 different zones in 3 miles was pretty neat.
Desert zone
Desert zone
Woodland Zone
Highland Zone
Along the way up we found a small pool that had some trout in it, so of course Heinz had to stop and look, study the layout, plan how he would fish the area if a) fishing was allowed, and b) if he had his fly fishing gear with him.
Finally the hike was over and after almost 6 miles yesterday and almost 7 miles today it was my turn for the victory sign!
AND, the friend we made for today is:
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