When you look at these pictures, it is easy to imagine a winter snow scene. Or even a visit to the Cape Cod National Seashore just down from Provincetown.
In fact, this is the Tularosa Basin in New Mexico, the world's largest gypsum dune field, aka White Sands National Monument.
We detoured to White Sands after leaving Ruidoso, wending our way back to the El Paso Airport by a circuitous route, and we were glad we did so. The area is both unique and impressive. And we were also glad that there were no missile firings on the day of our visit. The monument is closed when there are "activities" at the nearby White Sands Missile Base.
The gypsum of White Sands (hydrous calcium sulfate) comes from a dessicating lakebed to the west, with the wind producing the dunes usually seen at a seashore. These are "active" dunes, moving as much as 30 feet per year. The movement comes as the wind blows the sand into a dune, which gets higher and higher, making the leading edge of the dune (the slipface) steeper and steeper. Finally the force of gravity pulls the dune down, now a little farther to the east than when the movement started, and the entire cycle begins again.
The area averages about 10 inches of precipitation each year, which makes it even more astounding that the dunes sustain substantial animal and plant life.
Some plants have learned to adapt to the harsh conditions by quickly growing an elongated stem when a windstorm has buried the plant under a ton of sand. The plant literally digs itself out.
How I long to return to this magnificent area at dawn and at dusk, when shadows play over the dunes!
