White Sands National Park in New Mexico.
Who would have thought that a bunch of sand in the desert would be SO AWESOME!!!
If you go there, you have to hike in. Click on any image to see a larger version.
As you come into the park there is a fair amount of vegitation.
It thins out quickly as you go further into the park.
There is a car on the road.
Vegitation is thinner still.
I decided to go out on the hiking trail. As you can see, the wind blows the dunes around big time.
Part one of a panorama shot.
Part two of a panorama shot.
There were little rocks here and there gathered up. Finally a sign!
Way out toward the halfway point of the trail there was a sign explaining the rocks and the ants. I wondered how ants could live out here and got the answers here. Interesting, and I even saw a spider on the sand near some bushes.
A close up of the sand shows a hole and some of the ants.
Zooming show it even better.
The vegitation gets more sparce...
until all that is left is sand.
As you get to the far edge of the dunes you come to the military installation.
They have a line in the sand you do not want to cross. Yeah.
Like test range serious.
As I got to the farthest edges of the dunes I took the picture above and the picture at the top of the page.
Despite the thunder over the mountain in the distance, the area around me was dry and not too hot (95 degrees).
Once again above I am next to yet another buried orange trail sign.
Out at the halfway point you come to the edge of the dune field. The sign posts continue straight to the biggest solo bush in the distance on the right. Then the trail turns 90 degrees to the left. On the larger photo you can see the sign posts that form the trail, including the ones that shows the way for the trail as it goes off on the left side of the photo. I have a very large version of the above photo linked here.
There are a few large towers of sand. The vegetation keeps the sand stacked up against the wind.
This is the largest one I saw. It is probably about 60 to 75 feet tall.
There is nothing like a good day in the woods. Ignore your cell phone and relax.
