The Newport Family: White Sands National Monument

ORA. We’re heading to White Sands National Monument. We’ll be passing through Alamogordo – We’re traveling on route 82 -the Sacramento Mountains are just ahead of us – on our right is the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation – on the left, the Lincoln National Forest (I think the term “forest” is used loosely) . Its so barren and desolate.

You wonder how people can survive out here. There are cattle and a few ranches – but so many cacti! Where there is water or irrigation, the grass is green and there are some trees – but those places are few and far between. On the other side of White Sands will be the San Andres Mountains. I think we’ll be traveling through them – makes me wonder about brakes for wheel #4 in the Walmart bag in the trailer compartment ….

Hey – I see some trees, I guess it really is a forest. Mountains with actual green trees.

Coolest view today: coming out of Coldcroft, NM. (6,750) where there is actually a little ski slope and snow – yes, we were just in the hot desert. And then the view as we started to come down … it looked like we were looking down on the clouds to the San Andres Mountains – but it is actually White Sands.

... and we got to drive through a tunnel - cool - videoed it with the droid ... luvin the droid!

White Sands

At the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain-ringed valley, the Tularosa Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world’s great natural wonders the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert here and created the largest gypsum dune field in the world.

The dunes, brilliant and white, are ever changing. They grow, crest, then slump but always advance. Slowly but relentlessly the sand, driven by strong southwest winds, covers everything in its path. Within the extremely harsh environment of the dune field, even plants and animals adapted to desert conditions struggle to survive. Only a few species of plants grow rapidly enough to survive burial by the moving dunes. (again, from the pamphlet)

The San Andres and Sacramento mountain ranges ring the Tularosa Basin. The top of Sierra Blanca Peak (elevation 11,977 ft) in the Sacramento Mountains is still snow covered. It was so strange to stand in the desert where it was hot and look up at a snow covered mountain.

This is where we had lunch:

White Sands Missile Range is here too – Yikes!

Leaving White Sands we head toward Rockhound State Park in Deming NM for an overnight stay. Route 70 took us through the San Agustin Pass (elevation 5,719). The drive up to and through the pass was spectacular! Couldn’t resist taking pictures as we were driving.

Pull into the campground around 4 and there are only two sites left in the group camping area. That’s fine with us – it’s a nice quiet campground located on a western slope of the Florida Mountains. The view is amazing and the wildflowers are so cool.