The rolling, snow-like dunes of White Sands National Park provide a stark however really distinctive panorama – a superb minimalist canvas worthy of quiet contemplation, reflection, and peaceable moments of solitude.
There are some 275 sq. miles of dune fields within the Tularosa Basin, with the park holding almost 40% or about 115 sq. miles. Elevations vary from 3,890 to 4,116 ft above sea degree, and it’s dwelling to the world’s largest assortment of fossilized footprints from the Ice Age – prints that inform the story of greater than 20,000 years of human presence within the area.
Why Visit White Sands National Park in an RV?
Using an RV to discover White Sands National Park is a good way to expertise this distinctive park, which is dwelling to the world’s largest gypsum dune area. The dunes are fairly dynamic, and a few particular person dunes transfer as much as 30 ft per 12 months.
This white, rolling panorama is dwelling to varied species of crops and animals, all of which have advanced to outlive chilly winters, broiling summers, minimal floor water sources, and floor waters which might be very excessive in mineral content material.
Visiting White Sands in an RV offers you a straightforward technique to escape the desert and retreat to a well-stocked basecamp with meals, water, shade, and different RV necessities. Your elevated driving place may also present higher views of the sweeping, glowing panorama.
Plan for an extended day journey, maybe even solar as much as solar down, and use your RV to replenish your self after hikes, photographic enjoyable, viewing the dawn or sundown, and even sledding the dunes.
When to Visit White Sands National Park
The park is open year-round, and visitation reaches its peak in March, over the spring break holidays. Kelly Carroll, the Park’s Chief of Interpretation and a park ranger, notes:
“There’s not really a peak time, but if we had one, it would be March. The holidays are very busy, too, and just, in general, it’s gotten to be an extremely busy park. Becoming a national park [in 2019] and then people rediscovering their public lands over the COVID pandemic really increased visitation here.”
He additionally notes that their least visited time is January and February, including, “To me though, it’s a wonderful time to visit. There are so few visitors, and generally, the temperatures are mild with sunny skies.”
White Sands National Park within the Spring
Daytime temperatures from March to May common about 75 levels Fahrenheit, with cool nights dropping to round 40. Sunny days are frequent, as are robust windstorms, generally with wind speeds as much as 50 miles per hour.
White Sands National Park within the Summer
June by means of August temperatures common 95 levels with highs as sizzling as 110. The temps drop within the evenings, and lows at evening vary from 50-65 levels.
Their wet season begins in early July and carries over into late September. During this time, late afternoon and night thunderstorms are frequent, and the area will obtain most of its 10 inches of annual precipitation.
White Sands National Park within the Fall
The fall months typically have daytime temperatures averaging round 80 levels, with nighttime lows of 40. Sunny days with gentle winds are typical.
White Sands National Park within the Winter
Temperatures common round 60 levels from December to February, with colder nights that drop to 23. Sporadic winter storms will deliver rain and even, from time to time, snow.
Where to Stay
There aren’t any developed campgrounds in White Sands National Park, making it a park that’s higher for a day journey than a multi-day keep. On event, the park affords primitive backcountry tenting in White Sands, however accessibility may be depending on season and exercise on the close by missile vary.
Staying Outside the Park
If you don’t need to go away the consolation of your RV to camp in a single day within the dunes, listed below are a couple of close by RV parks and resorts:
- Boot Hill RV Resort: Located in Alamogordo about 22 miles from the park. They have 50 websites (30’x70’ or bigger), 19 of that are pull-throughs. There are a wide range of facilities, together with an train room, artwork gallery, reward store, web, and extra.
- White Sands Manufactured Home and RV Community: Located about 19 miles from the park. It affords paved, pull-through RV areas with full hookups, privateness partitions, free cable TV, and views of the 9,000-foot Sacramento Mountains.
- Midtown Mountain Campground & RV Park: Located about 64 miles from the park. It affords 27 full-hookup RV websites inside strolling distance of wineries, eateries, and mountain climbing & biking trails.
- Eagle Creek RV Resort: Located about 70 miles from the park. This now-decommissioned ski resort affords 54 full-hookup websites with gated entry, laundry, web connection, and extra.
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For public tenting choices close by, try:
- Oliver Lee State Park affords 41 campsites (15 of which have water and electrical energy) and is located 27 miles to the southeast. Ranger Carroll is a specific fan of this campground. “It’s absolutely beautiful and well-maintained,” he says. “I love it there, especially since it has, I think, the best dark skies in the Tularosa Basin.”
- Aguirre Springs Recreation Area’s campground has 55 websites (with two further group websites). Water is barely obtainable on the entrance, and the street as much as the campground will get slender and winding. The beneficial most RV size is 23 ft.
- In summer time, the Lincoln National Forest’s Monjeau Lookout Campground handles RVs. It’s about 40 miles east within the Sacramento Mountains, with steep grime roads resulting in it. Carroll notes that the nationwide forest may be some 25 levels cooler than the temperatures within the park, providing a very good escape in the summertime. It’s value noting that this forest is the place the precise Smokey the Bear was present in 1950.
Tips for Your Visit
Whether you’re spending the day within the park or tenting close by, the following tips will make your journey extra gratifying:
- Be ready for the potential of blowing sand. Ensure your RV doorways, home windows, and roof vents are secured, and be ready to handle sand out of your footwear.
- If you’ll be able to, use your RV’s out of doors bathe to rinse footwear earlier than going inside. You may use a wash tub to get the sand off your footwear or take them off/swap them out earlier than you step inside.
- Keep additional electronics contained in the RV, and contemplate a protecting case in your telephone or any digicam gear.
- Like snow, the gypsum will mirror daylight again up towards you, so you’ll want to sunscreen locations beneath your chin and the very sunburn-prone space beneath your nostril.
Carroll provides, “The heat out here can get intense. The white sand is so reflective, even more reflective than a mirror. You really need to be cognizant of your situation and necessary safety protocols.”
- The US Army’s White Sands Missile Range sometimes conducts missile checks within the space. During these checks, the street into the dune area, Dunes Drive, could also be closed for as much as three hours.
Park workers typically find out about checks two weeks prematurely, however notification could come as rapidly as 24 hours earlier than the scheduled take a look at. All exercise, together with mountain climbing, horseback using, sledding, and driving, is prohibited through the checks, though the park customer heart and reward store will stay open.
Note that sometimes particles from these checks falls into the park. It’s typically buried by sand, solely to be uncovered later. If you find any kind of unusual object, don’t contact it, keep properly away and notify park workers as it could be an unexploded ordinance.
How to Get Around White Sands National Park
White Sands National Park roads are broad and flat with little or no grade wherever. Carroll provides, “The park is perfectly able to handle RV visits. The roads are nice and wide, and there’s plenty of space to turn around. It’s never an issue to see this park from an RV.”
The park roads are recognized for washboard surfaces, that are necessary to navigate slowly in an RV. But getting there’s straightforward, as you’ll be able to entry Dunes Drive and the customer heart off US 70 between mile markers 199 and 200.
The park entrance is about quarter-hour from Alamogordo and an hour from Las Cruces. If you’re utilizing a GPS unit, watch out to enter ‘White Sands National Park’ as an alternative of simply ‘White Sands’ – the latter could direct you to the missile vary as an alternative of the park.
Places to Go
As its identify suggests, the white sands are the primary attraction however begin by visiting these accessible locations if it’s your first time within the park.
The Visitor Center
This constructing is a superb instance of Spanish pueblo-adobe or ‘Pueblo-Revival’ structure as constructed through the years of the Great Depression by Works Progress Administration employees.
The benches and chairs all through are typical Indian-Spanish designs with modest ornamental carving and heavy development to withstand splitting within the dry desert air. Lighting fixtures are made from tinware within the native historic type.
In 1990, the customer heart and adjoining buildings have been designated because the White Sands National Park Historic District. The customer heart features a museum and a 17-minute movie concerning the park.
The Park Store and Gift Shop
There is a park retailer with a collection of sandwiches, burritos, snacks, and drinks. The White Sands Trading Company’s reward store affords genuine Native American handicrafts, together with pottery and sterling silver jewellery, sleds for sand sledding, sandwiches and snacks, t-shirts, and souvenirs.
The Dunes
Time your go to to discover the dunes in numerous gentle circumstances, and be ready for some artistic photograph alternatives. Carroll, who’s on his fourth nationwide park task, says, “Definitely stay for the sunsets as they’re some of the best I’ve ever seen. They definitely bring in a crowd.”
Things To Do in White Sands National Park
Fill your day (or days) within the park with these thrilling out of doors and academic actions.
Hiking and Picnicking
There are 5 designated mountain climbing trails, together with a one-mile nature path and a brief boardwalk path over the dunes. The Playa Trail’s shortest path is just one,200 ft, whereas the Alkali Flat Trail is the longest at 5 miles. Picnicking within the park has been a favourite exercise of locals for generations. There are 62 canopied picnic tables in three designated areas alongside Dune Drive.
Sledding
While sudden to first-time guests, sledding is one other favourite exercise right here. The white gypsum dunes look snow-like and behave (considerably) like snow too. You can deliver your individual sleds, or you should buy them on the White Sands Trading Company.
Note that old-style sleds with runners received’t work properly within the sand as they don’t have the mandatory elevate to ‘float’ atop the sand to sled down a dune.
Ranger-Led Programs
Park ranger applications embody a sundown stroll on the interdune boardwalk, full moon hikes, a tour of the dry Lake Lucero, and MothaPalooza, an annual, family-friendly evening occasion that investigates and showcases the greater than 40 distinctive, endemic species of moths. The park stays open afterward full moons in the summertime, with reside music, ranger applications, and particular visitor presenters.
Cycling
Biking can also be a pleasing and distinctive technique to expertise White Sands National Park. The first 4 miles of Dunes Drive are paved, however the hard-pack gypsum crystal areas typically have a tough ‘washboard’ floor, potholes, and sand drifts. For that motive, street bikes with skinny tires should not beneficial. Mountain bikes, metropolis/seashore cruisers, and fats tire e-bikes are most popular.
What to Bring and How to Prepare
To guarantee your security and luxury in what can generally be an unforgiving setting within the gypsum sands, contemplate including this stuff to your RV’s stock:
Brief History of White Sands National Park
While the white sand dunes have been round for about 10,000 years, the positioning didn’t change into part of the NPS till it was designated White Sands National Monument in 1933. 4,000 folks confirmed up for the monument’s opening in 1934, and a few 34,000 folks visited throughout that first 12 months.
The customer heart, restrooms, park workers residences, and different constructions have been accomplished in 1938 and are nonetheless used right this moment. Just months after the assault on Pearl Harbor, the close by 1,243,000-acre Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range have been created by President Roosevelt.
In July 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb was detonated about 60 miles north of the monument on the Trinity Site. The website is now a National Historic Landmark however is closed to the general public besides for 2 days of the 12 months in April and October.
After the conclusion of World War II, the army started utilizing the world to check missiles, together with captured German V-2 rockets. In 1947, one went off track and flew over the border into Mexico, crashing simply exterior the town of Juarez.
The facility was ultimately renamed White Sands Missile Range. In December 2019, the monument was re-designated and have become the 62nd nationwide park within the National Park System.
Plan your subsequent journey to the nationwide parks in an RV. Rent an RV, trade-in your RV, or purchase a brand new or used RV and begin touring for lower than $5 a day.
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‘Chez’ Chesak is an award-winning journey journey author, 20+ 12 months veteran of the out of doors business, Executive Director of the Outdoor Writers Association of America and chair of The Society of American Travel Writers’ Central States Chapter. His works have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Fodors.com, Good Housekeeping, Rachel Ray Every Day, Ohio journal, Cincinnati journal, Rails-to-Trails, Family Vacation Critic, and dozens extra out of doors/journey publications and web sites. He’s additionally completed journey segments for his native FOX affiliate and on American Forces Radio and is a daily ‘expert’ contributor to USA Today’s 10Best.