Tag: New Mexico

White Sands National Park

ChrisLeave a comment

Onward to White Sands National Park in New Mexico – the world’s largest gypsum dune field.  We spent a few hours hiking around and taking pictures.  The fine gypsum feels nice and cool underfoot – it doesn’t heat up in the sun like sand.

I had hoped to also visit the Trinity test site but it’s open to visitors only two days each year (once in April and once in October) due to the site being part of the active White Sands Missile Range. We left the park an hour or two before sunset to find a nice dispersed campsite beyond the next little range of mountains:

Click through for the full gallery:

Carlsbad Caverns

ChrisLeave a comment

Continuing on our return trip, next stop was Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas near the New Mexico border.  We checked out the visitor center and went for a hike in the afternoon before continuing on to camp on some BLM land in New Mexico near Carlsbad Caverns National Park.  The following day was of course to visit Carlsbad Caverns.

We bought tickets for the self-guided tour and spent several hours enjoying and following the extensive walking paths of the cave system.  There are ranger-led tours to some more isolated portions of the cave but these are very limited and get booked up well in advance.  After exploring the cave at our leisure and having lunch back in the van, we waited around to join the ranger-hosted twilight event to learn about the bats that use the cave for much of the year and to wait for their grand, swarming, evening exit from the cave.  No photography allowed (or any devices or talking for that matter) but we did get to watch many hundreds stream out.  Apparently at later times of the year, you can see many hundreds of thousands of bats exit the cave.

We camped on some more BLM land that evening but woke the next day to a forecast for severe high wind and dust storm expected for hundreds of miles in every direction later that day.  We had already planned to restock food in the town of Carlsbad so we ended up just renting a hotel room in Carlsbad to sit out the storm.

Click through for the full gallery: