Yesterday we drove to White Sands National Monument, the world's largest gypsum dune field at 275 square miles of blinding white - looks
like sand, dunes. Amazing. We had been to the
sand dunes in Michigan but this was awesome. The surrounding San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges, part of the original Rocky Mountain range of 70 million years ago, have gypsum within it's peaks and the ranger who talked with us showed us the white band in the mountains of where the gypsum lies. Weirdest feeling, this sand. It is so
soft. And hard! We drove around the park, stopped here and there to take pictures and walk on the dunes, watched kids on saucer sleds sliding down dunes, walked the Alkali Trail for about 2 miles then headed back to get to the area where at 4pm there was a ranger guided sunset walk. Very informative. She explained different aspects of how vegetation grows, or dies, pointing out tracks in the sand, showing us how the dunes move in feet every year. One of the amazing things is you could dig about 4 inches down and find wet/water. When it rains, the
water has no where to go and just sits in this basin. Did you know that gypsum is the major ingredient for dry wall? It is also in tofu, beer, shampoo, fertilizer for crops, to name a few. The 'snow plow' guy is out every day plowing the sand off the roads. Sometimes 3 times a day if it's windy. Looks like snow from a distance. The tracks in the sand typically are gone by the next day. It is amazing that most of the vegetation we saw survives - the ranger said that most have a root base of 30 to 40 feet deep to get at the water. This picture is a sumac that has roots down 30 feet and when the dunes are moving, the plant will adapt and grown deeper roots to survive. Many animals will burrow into the base to live. We were on land that belonged to the White Sands Missile Range and were treated to a number of (we think) Air Force jets flying overhead. At times you could here when they broke the sound barrier (boom!). Fortunately there wasn't any missiles or target shooting going on that day, when there is the park is closed. The sand, feels like talcum powder.
like sand, dunes. Amazing. We had been to the sand dunes in Michigan but this was awesome. The surrounding San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges, part of the original Rocky Mountain range of 70 million years ago, have gypsum within it's peaks and the ranger who talked with us showed us the white band in the mountains of where the gypsum lies. Weirdest feeling, this sand. It is so 
soft. And hard! We drove around the park, stopped here and there to take pictures and walk on the dunes, watched kids on saucer sleds sliding down dunes, walked the Alkali Trail for about 2 miles then headed back to get to the area where at 4pm there was a ranger guided sunset walk. Very informative. She explained different aspects of how vegetation grows, or dies, pointing out tracks in the sand, showing us how the dunes move in feet every year. One of the amazing things is you could dig about 4 inches down and find wet/water. When it rains, the 
water has no where to go and just sits in this basin. Did you know that gypsum is the major ingredient for dry wall? It is also in tofu, beer, shampoo, fertilizer for crops, to name a few. The 'snow plow' guy is out every day plowing the sand off the roads. Sometimes 3 times a day if it's windy. Looks like snow from a distance. The tracks in the sand typically are gone by the next day. It is amazing that most of the vegetation we saw survives - the ranger said that most have a root base of 30 to 40 feet deep to get at the water. This picture is a sumac that has roots down 30 feet and when the dunes are moving, the plant will adapt and grown deeper roots to survive. Many animals will burrow into the base to live. We were on land that belonged to the White Sands Missile Range and were treated to a number of (we think) Air Force jets flying overhead. At times you could here when they broke the sound barrier (boom!). Fortunately there wasn't any missiles or target shooting going on that day, when there is the park is closed. The sand, feels like talcum powder.
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