SW Summertime Sledding…

White Sands National Park! Another new National Park sticker for our collection.

We learned quite a bit about the area and the park AFTER our visit that would have been good to know up front…

First of all, White Sands National Park, established in 2019 (Its just a baby!) sits within or adjacent to White Sands Missile Range.

The park is 275 square miles.

The missile range is 3,200 square miles.

This area is quite actively used by the military, so we were able to see fighter jets occasionally both here and when we were back in Tucson. It’s pretty neat seeing those scream by far overhead.

It’s about an hour drive from Las Cruces to White Sands National Park, and the whole time we were driving up there, we were thinking, are there going to be missiles shooting by overhead? Do we pull over if that happens? What if one of the tests goes wrong? Should we post a “last known location” photo for the kids?

The most important fact that we learned was that when they ARE doing tests, they shut down the park (obviously, duh), as well as the entire road that goes to the park, through the dunes. Shut downs last about 2-3 hours. They apparently do this 2-3 times per week?

Oh, and if you find any strange looking metal or debris in the park, it is best to just leave it alone and let the rangers know about it. No need to get radioactivated.

Blissfully unaware of the possible missile activity (Ben was always watching, hoping to catch sight of one ripping by overhead), we were in National Park exploration mode!

At White Sands, this starts with the visitor center, where we learned that the area is a huge deposit of gypsum sand, which is very white and it reflects almost all of the heat that is burning down on top of it. SO, while the sun is scorching and there is no shade anywhere, the sand remains relatively cool to the touch. You can even walk your dog without fear of paws being burned.

And, we learned that you can go sledding on the sand!

Sledding is one of those activities that is closely associated with snow, so I figured my sledding days are long behind me as are my days of seeing snow in person.

Incorrect.

Ben shuffled us to the back of the visitor center to the gift shop part, where we proceeded to sign our life away, completed multiple waivers and watched several training videos featuring a slate of gender and culturally diverse actors about how to properly dunesled, and with fancy upgraded sleds in hand, a block of wax tucked in our pockets, we headed out into the hinterlands of the dunes.

Pretty much from one side of the mountain valley to the other, as far as the eye could see, stretched rolling dunes of pure white sand. It was blindingly white and reflective, but as the brochure said, the sand was warm, but certainly far from hot.

With our fancy rented dune boards in hand, we trudged up the steep dunes, feet and sometimes hands scrabbling for purchase in the shifting and sliding sand, and made it all the way to the top with only second degree sunstrokes.

Having pre-waxed the boards at the bottom of the hill, we cautiously got in position, made sure no-one was looking, and we gracelessly slid down the steep face of the dunes!

What a blast!

After about four or five runs, we were breathing pretty hard and we decided we had packed enough sand in our various crevices to last a lifetime, so we retired the sleds to the back of the truck and continued our exploration from the front seats.

We made our way back to the visitor center, returned our sleds and our partially used block of wax, and headed back down the lonely highway towards Las Cruces.

Since this is also an active missile range, the facilities were sparse and spartan on the way back. Thankfully, we were not “in trouble” on this trip.

It would have been interesting scenery for potty-ing in, but we passed.

We were treated to a visit by a local kite fox that stopped to check us out for a disturbingly long time, and then an amazing sunset that was chasing the storm clouds through the area.