Beautiful View Of White Sands National Park

The White Sands National Monument is known as a U.S. National Monument positioned around Twenty-five kilometres south west of Alamogordo in western Otero County and northeastern Dona Ana County inside the state of New Mexico. National Monument lies a vast sea of glistening snow white dunes that continually draws visitors from across the world. The monument contains the world’s largest gypsum sand dune field — 275 square miles of fine white sand, formed by the prevailing winds into large ridge-like dunes.  In its first year the park attracted 12,000 people, and today as many as 600,000 people visit the park annually.

Weathering and erosion breaks the crystals into sand-size grains that are carried away by the prevailing winds from the southwest, forming white dunes. The dunes are constantly being moved to the southwest and reshaped by these winds.

Because gypsum is a water soluble mineral, and is often carried by rivers away to the sea, a ideal coincidence of environmental conditions must exist to create a gypsum dune field. In additional to the snow white color, that turns elegant shades of pink and purple in the right light, gypsum sands differ from silica in being smoother and much less abrasive.

In contrast to some other desert sands, it’s cool to the touch, because of the high rate of evaporation of surface moisture it comes with the sands reflect, rather than absorb, the rays of the sun. The gypsum doesn’t readily convert the sun’s energy into warmth and for that reason can be walked upon safely with bare feet, even during the hottest summer season. At 1185 m over sea level, around 442 total square kilometers of dune areas and is regarded as the earth’s largest surface deposit of gypsum. In places accessible by car, children often use the sand hills for downhill sledding.

The Big Dune Nature trail, located on the edge of the dune field, allows for close observation of many of the plants and animals adapted to life there. Animals are especially active early in the moring and at dusk.

A lot of the wildlife of White Sands have developed night time practices to avoid predators and the desert temperature. A lot of fauna located at White Sands, such as lizards, pocket mice, crickets, toads, and beetles, own evolved white forms which are camoflauged because of their environment. Nevertheless, of the forty-four species of animals, twenty-six species of reptiles, six species of amphibians and almost one hundred groups of insects recorded on the monument, the vast majority possess regular coloration.

Through mid-April to mid-June desert wildflowers may be regularly be found in bloom. The claret cup cactus bloom through late April through mid-May, although cholla cacti begin blooming in mid-May. Several wildflowers grow in Fall, generally from mid-August till as late as November.

A number of the sand hills are high and steep enough to offer a great ride on the plastic tobaggan or maybe sled. Although many tourists try sledding on anything from carboard boxes to trash bags, you will want to carry your own sled for the greatest adventure.

Dune photography is ideal in the morning and evening once the sun is low on the horizon, creating fascinating shadows over the dunes. Camera meters could be tricked from the white sand, so it’s smart to meter slightly higher than what is reported by the light meter to stop getting the sands seem grey.

There is no lodging within the monument, but the town of Alamogordo, located 15 miles east of the park, has several hotels.

The History :- The first exploration was led by a party of US Army officers in 1849. The Mescalero Apache were already living in the area at the time. Hispanic families started farming communities in the area at Tularosa in 1861 and at La Luz in 1863.

Creating a national park in the white sands formation goes back as far as 1898. A group in El Paso had proposed the creation of "Mescalero" National Park. Their idea was for a game hunting preserve, which conflicted with the idea of preservation held by the Department of the Interior, and their plan was not successful. In 1921-1922 Albert Bacon Fall, United States Secretary of the Interior and owner of a large ranch in Three Rivers near White Sands, promoted the idea of a national park there, an "All-Year National Park" that, unlike more northerly parks, would be usable year-round. This idea ran into a number of difficulties and did not succeed. Tom Charles, an Alamogordo insurance agent and civic booster, was influenced by Fall's ideas. By emphasizing the economic benefits, Charles was able to mobilize enough support to have the park created.

On January 18, 1933, President Herbert Hoover created the White Sands National Monument, acting under the authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906. The dedication and grand opening was on April 29, 1934

Life as a National Monument

Tom Charles became the first custodian of the monument, and upon his retirement in 1939 became the first concessionaire, operating as White Sands Service Company.

The Headquarters building (also called the Visitor Center Complex) was constructed of adobe bricks as a Works Progress Administration project starting in 1936 and completed in 1938. 

The Monument is completely surrounded by military installations (White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base) and has always had an uneasy relationship with the military. Errant missiles often fell on WSNM property, in some cases destroying some of the visitor areas. Overflights from Holloman disturbed the tranquility of the area.

In 1969 the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish introduced oryx into the Tularosa Basin, intending them to be hunted for sport. The oryx had no natural predators; they invaded WSNM and competed with the native species for forage.

In 1996, increasingly problematic alcohol abuse by students on spring break led to a ban of alcohol use in the monument during the months of February to May.

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