New Mexico Travels with Julie - Sunset Hike at White Sands National Monument

October 30, 2019


Julie and I barely made it to White Sands National Monument in time to see it.  But we WERE in time to drive the auto tour, then join a ranger-led sunset hike.  It was interesting to learn that the sand is made of gypsum - some 275 square miles of it. But otherwise, it seems to support about the same kinds and quantities of life as does sand made of quartz.

The sand undulates in dunes

And often has beautiful wind patterns etched into the sand

It is much easier to walk on a boardwalk than the sand itself

I couldn't figure what it was that allowed plants to grow or prevent them from doing the same - I think it is the interaction of plants, sand and wind. The wind may scour the flat places while depositing more sand where plants have managed to get a start

The sands are always moving and the plants have various strategies to keep themselves from getting buried. This plant keeps growing taller rapidly

Another landscape

A little color in the magic hour

Wind carvings

A rare long view

Some places are have many fewer plants than others - this is a yucca

Beginning of the sunset hike

It seems the plants themselves make little duns as they capture more and more sand

Julie on hike as the sky promised a great sunset

The golden hour

Sunset glow

The sun and clouds did produce a lovely sunset

The patterns formed by footprints reminded me of the petroglyphs we had seen that morning 

Julie enjoying the last of the sunset