Gypsum Gypsies at White Sands National Park - Part 1, Sunday, April 24, 2022

In order not to burn up in high afternoon temperatures on today's walk, we left Ruidoso at 6:30 am for our hour-long drive to Alamogordo, New Mexico. From our campground, we took NM 48 to Carrizo Canyon Drive. As we passed the dam at Mescalero Lake by Inn of the Mountain Gods Casino, we saw a herd of wild horses on the dam. They were far enough away that my cell phone would not capture a clear photo of them, but I'm sharing it here anyway so you can see them.

Wild horses on the dam at
Mescalero Lake.

After connecting with U.S. 70 to Alamogordo, New Mexico, our drive to White Sands National Park was uneventful with very little traffic that early in the morning. The National Park opens the gate at 7 am and the Visitor Center opens at 9 am. 

It should be noted that if you are going to White Sands National Park, you need to make sure the roads to the park are open. A couple of times per week, US 70 is closed for missile testing. There is a phone number on the National Park website that you can call the night before to find out about road closures.

Bob and I decided to stick with the 5k option for our Volksmarch. The 10k option included 8k on the most difficult of all the trails in the park. Because it was already 8:15 am when we arrived, we thought it prudent to stick to the shorter distance. And Susan Medlin told us when she did the walk a few days ago that some of the trail markers were missing and she had no idea which way to go. She decided not to do that walk. Because she was walking by herself, that was a very smart decision!

Before we started out, we grabbed the "Helpful Safety Information" brochure which had translations in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Mandarin, Korean, and Japanese. Conditions are extreme out in the desert and people need to know what to expect and what to do to keep themselves safe. Such as:

• Drink plenty of water. One gallon (4 liters) of water per person per day is recommended by the park service.
• Bring and eat plenty of high-energy snacks to keep you going.
• Rest often. Heat stroke can happen fast. Take frequent breaks inside, or at the shaded picnic tables.
• Know where you are! Wind erases your tracks, and GPS can be unreliable. Use trail markers [if you can find them], a compass, and landmarks. Never hike alone.
• Be prepared! Sand reflects the sunlight. Wear a hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen, even in winter. Carry a jacket in case of cold weather.
• Dangerous digging. Digging tunnels in the dunes is fun, but the sand is heavy and can collapse and cause suffocation.
• Beware of lightning! During a lightning storm, take cover in a closed building or vehicle. If you are not near shelter, squat low to the ground, place your hands over your ears, and put your head between your knees.
• Sled away from the roads. (You can buy sleds in the Visitor Center.)
• Prepare for emergencies! Know what time the sun sets and the weather forecast. Have a fully charged cell phone and conserve your battery...

There are bathrooms at all trailheads, but there is no water in the park except at the Visitor Center by the entrance. You are expected to bring your own water or fill your bottles at the Visitor Center. Being sufficiently warned, we were ready to hike in the dunes. 

What makes White Sands so special that they made a national park here? The reason is given in the park brochure.

"Like a mirage, dazzling white sand dunes shimmer in the tucked-away Tularosa Basin in southern New Mexico. They shift and settle over the Chihuahuan Desert, covering 275 square miles--the largest gypsum dunefield in the world. White Sands National Park preserves more than half of this oasis, its shallow water supply, and the plants and animals living there."

"When the Permian Sea retreated millions of years ago, it left deep layers of gypsum. Mountains rose and carried the gypsum high. Later, water from melting glaciers dissolved the mineral and returned it to the basin. Today, rain and snow continue the process.

"For thousands of years in shallow lakes like Lake Lucero (in the park), wind and sun have separated the water from the gypsum and formed selenite crystals. Wind and water break down the crystals making them smaller and smaller until they are sand. Steady, strong southwest winds keep gypsum sand moving, piling it up and pushing dunes into various shapes and sizes.

"Beneath your feet [here] is the glue that holds this vast dunefield together--water, inches below the surface. Compared to other dune types, gypsum dunes remain moist during the longest droughts. The moisture prevents the dunes from blowing away. Water becomes older and saltier toward the center of the dunefield. Scientists are working to understand this change and other phenomena of this shimmering land."

Our 5k walk is divided into three parts: 

1. Dune Life Nature Trail (1.5k) 
2. Interdune Boardwalk (0.5k)
3. Backcountry Camping Loop Trail (3k)

Dune Life Nature Trail: This interpretive trail was a good introduction to the Chihuahuan Desert. Signboards were interspersed along the trail and helped us find our way if the trail markers had blown down. They also introduced us to the animals and plants that make up life in this desert. 

This is the information board
for this trail.

Who lives in this desert?

We are heading to the dunes!

Carnivores that live here.

We could go either way around the circle trail so we headed left first. The weather was beautiful this early in the day, about 72 degrees and crystal clear. Only one other couple was there when we started and they headed right. It was informative to be the first human footprints on the dunes this morning. We were able to see the footprints of other critters that had been out overnight.

The tracks below could be from Grasshopper mice or Apache pocket mice or a bleached earless lizard.

Small animal tracks.

Large animal tracks. LOL.

Each trail has its own markers.
This trail has black clubs.

Wow! Long shadows and no one else.

I love the sand patterns from the wind.

Bob heading to an info sign.

Bob on the dune hike with the
San Andres Mountains in the background.

These trees are getting
covered by the dunes.

The information boards taught us about who lives on the edge of the dunes...

• Grasshopper mice are almost 100% meat eaters. They eat deadly centipedes and scorpions. They hunt at night and claim and defend large territories (the size of 10 football fields). After a kill, they get up on a rock and let out a lion-like roar.
• Yucca moths live amongst the soaptree yuccas. They carry pollen from flower to flower. The one place where a yucca moth egg is safe until it hatches is inside a yucca pod.
• Coyotes catch and eat kit foxes. They patrol up to eight miles from their den every night. That is like hiking this dune trail eight times!
• Pallid bats do not eat on the fly like most bats. Their meals consist of crickets, cicadas, stinkbugs, and scorpions. Since their food is rarely up in the air, pallid bats normally eat their food on the ground.
• Roadrunners can fly, but they prefer a fast trot. This makes it easier for them to grab a quick snack like a lizard or a snake while on the run. At sundown, they are ready for bed. You can find roadrunners in the same tree night after night.
• Apache pocket mice don't drink--EVER! These mice get all the water they need from food. The seeds they harvest are carried in large cheek pouches. The seeds are stashed in cool underground pantries where the seeds absorb moisture. This helps the mice get water.
• Burrowing owls love beetles. They take over fox holes or tunnels of badgers or prairie dogs--places rattlesnakes also live. These owls line their den with scat from other animals to attract their favorite food--beetles. When the bugs show up, the owls grab them.
• Nighthawks zoom overhead at sunset and nighttime with their mouths wide open, scooping up moths, beetles, grasshoppers, winged termites, and flying ants. In the fall, some of these birds fly all the way to Brazil.
• Bobcats like the same food night after night. Biologists who study desert bobcats say that 45% of their diet comes from just one prey: jackrabbits. It takes a lot of four-pound rabbits to keep one 24-pound bobcat going.
• Tarantula hawks (a type of wasp) live alone and hunt alone.  Their prey, the tarantula spider, is bigger, hairier, and more venomous. When this wasp finds a tarantula away from its lair, a death match begins. If she wins, she paralyzes the spider and lays one egg inside it. She drags it to her hideout and seals it underground. After hatching, the young wasp eats the spider from the inside out. Eww.
• American badgers will eat almost anything: mice, prairie dogs, honeybees, frogs, fish, bugs, skunks, corn, mushrooms, and snakes (including rattlesnakes). Badgers teach their young how to hunt which is important when they try to eat a dangerous meal.

We didn't meet anyone else on the trail; that is, until we met up with the couple who circled to the right. Where we met was a beautiful tree. We took turns taking photos there.

Dune Life Nature Trail.

We continued on the loop and found two different types of sand: loose and hard-packed. 

Bob demonstrating the vastness
of the dunes.

The ridged sand (bottom left quadrant)
is hard. The sand on the right is soft.

Here's the photogenic tree from
another angle.

Looking across White Sands National 
Park to the San Andres Mountains.

Gypsum gypsy.

As we got closer to the parking lot, we saw five of our Volksmarch buddies appear across the dunes. We stopped to say hi and I took some photos. More gypsum gypsies!

Gale and Klaus Waibel.

 L to R: Sheri Logan, Bob Alton,
Andy Thomas, & Susan Noonan.

Sheri Logan and Bob Alton.

We finished up the Dune Life Nature Trail and drove 1.5 miles to the Interdune Boardwalk. Again, there is a lot of information along this 0.5k boardwalk. They built the boardwalk to protect the fragile cyanobacteria (more on that in a minute).

Interdune Boardwalk: This boardwalk is all about education. In the short time we were on this boardwalk, we learned a lot more about the plants, animals, and ecosystem of White Sands National Park. 

The Interdune Boardwalk.

The Interdune Boardwalk.

The Interdune Boardwalk and
information pavilion (with shade!).

Don't walk on the cyanobacteria!

Plant information plaques covered Hoary Rosemary Mint, Alkali Sacaton, Soaptree Yucca, and Torrey's Jointfir. Animal information provided by the signs included the Little Striped Whiptail (lizard), Lugo's Alligator Lizard, Bleached Earless Lizard, and moths (researchers identified over 650 species of moths in a two-mile radius [1% of the park] at White Sands, 35 of those species were brand new, found only at White Sands!).

Informational signs on the ecosystem are below. It's all very fascinating.

Plowing the sand (which is always
shifting).

Why is gypsum valuable today?

The weather patterns.

Selenite crystals.

The effects of water.

The effects of water, continued from
the above photo.

The boardwalk took us less then 30 minutes to complete, so we drove the next 1.5 miles to the Backcountry Camping Loop Trail. 

Backcountry Camping Loop Trail: There's a large parking lot at this location and no obvious trail signs at the lot. Thankfully, our walk organizers told us how to find the trail. We had to go behind the restroom, and walk straight through the flat area between two of the smaller dunes. That's where we found the trailhead.

Heed these warning signs!

The National Park Service does not want anyone out on the dunes if the temperature is higher than 85 degrees. Personally, I wouldn't want to go out on the dunes if the temperature was over 75. All that sunlight reflects off the white dunes.

So, off we went starting up and over the first dune. It soon became obvious that we were the first people to walk this trail today. There were no other fresh human footprints. That made it difficult to find our way. 

An obvious marker.

So far, Bob is the only one leaving 
footprints.

After the first two or three trail markers (marked with a black spade), we couldn't find the next one. We scanned the dunes, searched and searched. Finally, I saw a marker lying flat on the sand. This happened frequently. We knew there were walkers coming after us, so Bob put the trail markers upright. (What a guy! Kudos.)

I was mesmerized by the many 
patterns made by the dunes.

I took a 360-degree video of the dune field. 

Bob putting up trail
markers that had been
lying on the sand.

We got to one really steep, soft sand dune. I wished I had my hiking poles with me. My feet sunk so far down into the sand that I was in up to my calves. At one point, I fell forward. I figured it was better than falling backward and rolling down the sand dune! Hiking on this sand is not for the faint of heart!

Going down!

This is the kind of fall
I don't mind...nice and soft.

The beautiful lines and shadows
out in the dunes.

The ridge of a sand dune.

A vast expanse of wind-rippled sand.

Bob hard at work putting
up the trail markers.

This is the way 
we found a number
of the markers.

Such beautiful lines.

Still working.

The sand eventually
covers and kills
the yucca.

In the next photo, it was very steep going down the sand dune. Bob is at the bottom waiting to take my picture. He never did forward the picture to me.

Sand verbena.

The lines and shadows are amazing.

More pretty sand patterns.

This sand is hard.

We continued on the trail back to the parking lot. From the parking lot, we headed to the Visitor Center. The road had been plowed, but it was amazingly bumpy. The hard sand made potholes. We had to slow down!

At the Visitor Center, we watched the movie and checked out the little museum. I got a stamp in my National Park Passport book. We ran into Susan Noonan, Andy Thomas, and Sheri Logan in the gift shop.

Below is the exhibit about the making of gypsum sand dunes from selenite.

Selenite crystals at Lake Lucero.

That's it for White Sands National Park. We were hungry and Alamogordo, New Mexico, was just a few miles away. At first, I wanted to have lunch at IHOP. However, it was packed! We went next door to Taco Bell and had the place pretty much to ourselves.

For Part 2 of today's blog, we will visit the International Space Hall of Fame in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Continued in Part 2...