Moving Sunlight and Changing Focus at White Sands National Park

How do I tell you about White Sands National Park in New Mexico? We spent only a day there (a short record for us), but my impressions are hard to pin down. Words aren’t enough, and photos are hard to take.

I could tell you about the unique geographic features that come together to make these the largest gypsum dunes in the world.

I could tell you about the unique ecosystem where animals and plants live here and nowhere else on Earth.

I could try to describe what it’s like when the clouds move under the sun such that shadows and sunlight move across the dunes, making the dunes look like they’re shifting, which they do, just not that quickly.

I could tell you about the occasional low playa, home to toads dormant in the hard clay right above the aquifer, who spring to life during rains.

Or the surprising hard edges of gypsum revealed by the wind, that feel like granite under foot.

Or the fact that the prints of mammoths, ground sloths, camels, dire wolves, and giant cats have all been found there, suddenly revealed by the wind.

The oldest human footprints in North America were found there, too. Tracy put his foot against this model and declared they’re the same shoe size.

We didn’t sled, and we didn’t go on the sunset hike because the wind had picked up. But we did hike the short hikes, watched the sky above and the sand below, plus the mountain ranges all around, and we imagined life in White Sands unlike anywhere else on Earth.