White Sands National Park
Located in the Tularosa Basin of southern New Mexico, dazzling white sand dunes cover 275 square miles in the Chihuahuan Desert. These are the largest gypsum dunes in the world and White Sands National Park preserves more than half of this oasis, its shallow water supply, and the plants and animals living there. The dunes are estimated to be 7,000 to 10,000 years old. When the ancient Permian Sea retreated millions of years ago, it left behind deep layers of gypsum. Mountains rose and carried the gypsum high out of the seafloor. Later, water from melting glaciers dissolved the mineral and returned it to the basin. Today, rain and melting snow continues to return gypsum to the basin.
For thousands of years, the basin has had the presence of ephemeral lakes or playas which only have water part of the year. These seasonal lakes not only provide more gypsum through evaporation in the desert sun, but they also hold the secret to holding the dunes together. Inches below the dunes’ surface is water and this keeps the dunes moist even in the worst droughts. Compared to other dune types, gypsum dunes retain moisture and this acts as a glue to keep the dunes from blowing away. The moisture also makes the dunes firm, easy to walk upon, and surprisingly cool.
The brilliant white mineral gypsum is used to manufacture drywall, specialty concretes, and blackboard chalk. In the early twentieth century, multiple commercial operations attempted to mine these gypsum deposits with little financial success. By the 1920s, locals who had been coming out to the dunes to picnic began to appreciate the uniqueness of the site and see its value in tourism. After some lobbying by local officials, President Herbert Hoover established White Sands National Monument in 1933 and tourism flourished. Just a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt established the 1.2-million-acre Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range where the military conducting live fire training in lands adjacent to, and sometimes in, the national monument.
Following the conclusion of World War II, the War Department established the White Sands Proving Grounds in 1945 where the military began testing new technologies of rockets and missiles. Under the project named Operation Paperclip, captured German V-2 ballistic missiles along with their German engineers, most notably Wehner von Braun, where shipped out to White Sands for testing and development of the United States rocket program. The test range was later renamed White Sands Missile Range and continues to test missiles to this day. Both the missile range and adjacent Holloman Air Force Base have a cooperative use of the western boundaries of White Sands National Park which sometimes results in the closure of the park and Highway 70 during live fire events. The national monument was redesignated White Sands National Park in 2019 making it the sixty-second national park.
White Sands National Park is located 54 miles east of Las Cruces, New Mexico right off US 70. The visitor center was designed in the Pueblo Revival style and built in the height of the Great Depression by the WPA. The 8-mile-long Dunes Drive connects the visitor center to the dune fields where you are free to explore the vast gypsum dunes. One of the most popular activities, especially with children, is to sled down the gypsum dunes and discs are available for rent at the visitor center. The eastern side of the dunes is full of vegetation like grasses, shrubs, yuccas, and even an occasional tree. However, the western side of the park is just vast gypsum dunes with the San Andres Mountains as a backdrop to the west. For the most part, White Sands National Park is a day use facility as there are no established campgrounds, however, some backcountry camping is allowed by permit only.
