Sun, Sand and …… Snow

15–17th Feb

Our next stop was White Sands National Monument which is situated in the middle of the White Sands Military Missile Range.  The Range is in the Tularosa Basin and is approx. 150 miles long by 40 mile wide.  Route 70 took us right across it. 

On the way we came across a road block closing the road to all traffic and we had to wait 15 minutes whilst a missile was fired.  Blink at the wrong second and you almost miss it!

We spent all day Saturday at the White Sands NM – it is not a National Park; the difference being that a NP is created by an Act of Congress whereas a National Monument is created by a Presidential decision.  By making it a NM it put a stop to plans to mine the gypsum.  These Sands Dunes are made of white gypsum and sparkle in the sunlight.  They cover around 275 sq miles, are the largest gypsum dunes in the world, and are constantly changing with the wind.

You can walk where you like and we found it was best without shoes – so we spent most of the day walking bare-foot! 

 

 

 

It was like being on the beach with the sun in the clear blue sky.   You can rent ‘sleds’ and slide down the dune slopes.  Many families were there making a day of it as this was also a 3-day holiday weekend. 

 

  

 

 

At the end of the day we joined a Ranger for a Sunset Stroll over the Dunes and watched the sun go down behind the Mountains.     

 

 

 

 

 Sunday we took a drive up into the Mescalero Mountains, to Cloudcroft, at a height of 8650ft.  We were most surprised to see SNOW!  Although much of the snow from a couple of weeks ago had melted there was a ‘ski resort’ feel to the place.

 

After spending the past month in the desert it was nice to see trees again.

 We drove up to the National Solar Observatory on Sacramento Peak at Sunspot, just 16 miles further up into the mountains in Lincoln National Forest.  We saw a couple of telescopes they use to study the sun, one of which is 136ft above ground and 228ft below ground.  Unfortunately we did not get to see into the telescopes.  However from our vantage point at this height (9200ft) we could see the wind whipping up the sands in the Dunes down in the Basin. 

Before going back to the RV we stopped at a Pistachio Nut Farm where we sampled most of their wares including several different wines one of which was Pistachio nut flavoured – and “hic” very nice too!