One week ago today, legislation was enacted to create our 62nd national park. White Sands National Monument was upgraded to National Park status and will get greater funding and protections. I visited the Monument several years ago. After revisiting these images, I want to go back! Let’s start with some classic black and white views. The graphic textures of the dunes fit well with black and white.
White Sands National Park, New Mexico
Ripples
The park is in the Chihuahuan Desert, but water is essential to keep the sand dunes. The park is surrounded by mountain ranges, and gypsum ran down from the mountains into the ancient lake that covered the area in the last ice age. When it evaporated, a dry lake bed, or playa, of gypsum remained. The dunes grew since the surrounding mountains kept the sand inside, and the crystals eroded to even smaller, whiter pieces. The water below the dunes helps keep the sands adhering and not blow away. Little Lake Lucero fills and evaporates adding more gypsum to the dunes.
Lake Lucero
The white sands also soak up the color of the sky, and the New Mexico desert offers great color at the beginning and end of the day. The plants send out long roots to be stable in the dune field and to soak up the little water.
Sunset amid yucca and Indian rice grass
The vast, undulating dunes are disorienting, and it is easy to lose track of where you’ve been, and more importantly, where the car was parked!
Of course, I wanted to be back to capture the dawn color, but the park gates don’t open until after sunrise. However, you can pay to have a ranger open the gates early! I ran into another photographer who agreed to split the costs, and we arranged to meet the ranger at the gate before first light. It was well worth it.
Dawn with crescent moon
The Soaptree Yucca is the most common plant in the dunes. Indians used all parts of the plant for food, fibers and, as its name indicates—soap.
North of the park, the dunes continue into the White Sands Missile Range. Last week the Starlliner capsule landed there after testing. Next year it will take astronauts to the space station. The park sometimes closes because of the missile testing, and at the far north end of the range, Trinity Site was where the first atomic bomb was detonated.
Soaptree Yucca
As the sun got up, and the magic color was going away, a bit of golden light offered the last images of the visit.
Cottonwood morning