"White Sands National Park" a White Sands Travel Page by bduffy007

I had the chance to visit White Sands National Park near Almogodoro, NM on Saturday, November 27th, 2004. White Sands National Park is located at the end of the Tularosa Basin. The desert is a very rare gypsum sand desert which ecompasses 275 square miles in the southern portion of New Mexico.

The park has a small visitors center at its entrance which has a gift shop as well as some information on how the dunes were created along with a 15 minute film that runs continuously throughout the day on White Sands and the natural forces that created it.

If you are in the area I highly recommend you check out the park but be warned of a few things.

First off be sure to have plently of water regardless of the time of year but especially during the hot spring and summer months as water is not available once inside the park, either on the drive or while hiking through the park..

Also be reminded that while White Sands can be extremely hot it can also be suprisingly cold as well. I visited the Saturday after Thanksgiving and though the tempature was reported to be at around 53 degrees when the sun went behing the clouds and the wind picked up it felt siginificantly colder. In fact members of my party immediately ditched their shoes to head out on to the dunes only to return minutes later remarking how cold there feet were on the sand.