Friday, October 11, 2013

White Sands National Monument


During our mid-September visit to New Mexico we ventured out to White Sands National Monument. I must admit after hearing Andrews’s family talk about it and reading about Gerhard's visit (here and here) I was pretty amped up about what awaited me.

When expectations are that high reality can only go downward, right?

Ya. Well remember this post when I talked about epic rainfall and flooding? Well after we paid the admission fee and were traveling along the magical roadway to white paradise all of a sudden it ended and we were forced to park alongside the road. Turns out the road and parts beyond were flooded out. I was disappointed. No fabulous futuristic eating areas, no white on white vistas as far as the eye could see.

We were stopped at the point where plants and white sands were still heavily mixed. Initially I wanted to experience the other worldliness of nothing but white sand, however as I wandered among the dunes I became captivated by the plant life. This wasn’t so bad!

There were a few of those tall sand structures dotted around the landscape. That’s Andrew to the right. He couldn’t resist investigating. Doesn’t he look a bit like those blurry Sasquatch photos you see?

There were a also few plants I would have really like to dig and bring home. This was one of them.

It wasn’t solely about the plants however. We were joined by several lizards. Mr. Blue here was the most colorful.

If you’re wondering about the sand it’s actually naturally occurring gypsum. Normally, it would be dissolved by rainfall and journey on to the ocean, however since there is no outlet to the oceans for this bit of land (the Tularosa Basin) gypsum from the surrounding San Andres and Sacramento Mountains is trapped here. The wind moves the sand around and reconstructs the dunes almost daily. Since we visited the day after record rainfall it was freakishly wet.

Who is that strange man?

I really wanted to take this beauty with me.

After we hiked through the dunes for quite awhile we then ventured over to the boardwalk (a suspended metal pathway) and read the educational signs.

It’s really better to be educated after the fact. I kept thinking I saw snakes but they were just dried up stems and leaves.

Ya. There were scary snakes out there!!!

But some cute creatures too.

They’re saying the Soaptree Yucca (Y. elata) can actually work to outgrow the moving sands. I wish I had time and a shovel and could dig down to expose that amazing underground trunk.

At the end of the boardwalk was this quote: “Anything that lives where it would seem that nothing could live, enduring extremes of heat and cold, sunlight and storm, parching aridity and sudden cloudbursts, among burnt rocks and shifting sands, any such creature, beast, birds, or flower, testifies to the grandeur and heroism inherent in all forms of life. Including the human. Even in us." – Edward Abbey

As I wrote this post and tried to link to the White Sands National Monument website I am reminded there are forces even more destructive than Mother Nature. She may have closed the road into the park but our government has succeeded (at this time) in not only closing down the entire monument but also the website. Pathetic. I'm glad I got to visit when I did.

All material © 2009-2013 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

32 comments:

  1. NICE...among the best photo documentaries about White Sands I've seen! You captured the cool forms of plants I dismiss as ordinary so well, forbs #4 to young soaptrees #5. Ha ha on Andy, AKA The Tularosa Basin Sandman...

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    1. "The Tularosa Basin Sandman"...I love it!

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  2. It's really too bad you weren't able to drive all the way into the heart of the dunes, but you still got to see some stunning scenery. Thank you for taking photos of the interpretive signs; that's something I failed to do last summer and I promptly forgot what most of the plants that live in WS are called.

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    1. I feel fortunate to have seen what I did, trying not to dwell on what I didn't. Besides I have your great photos for that!

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  3. A surreal landscape. Inhabited by bright blue lizards no less!

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    1. There were brownish ones with stripes too, they were harder to photograph.

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  4. That is unreal! I had no idea it even existed. And I'm smitten with those blue lizards. I think I could go for some of those wandering around the garden!!!

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    1. Snakes no, lizards yes...isn't it strange the difference in reactions?

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  5. An amazing place. So strange seeing the plants mixed in with the white sand.

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    1. One of the other remarkable things was watching the red ants scurry around on the sand, I was unable to get a good photo of them.

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  6. Oh boy, you got there just in the knick of time. Can you imagine if you finally had the chance to visit this last week? I can't believe they don't even allow the website to function. Pathetic indeed. Beautiful pictures.

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    1. It's just so crazy the things effected by the government shut down. I read an article in the paper this morning about the thousands of dollars (and huge amount of time) that's gone in to planning Grand Canyon vacations and all those people are just SOL, the trip of a lifetime, not gonna happen.

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  7. Whoa! That blue lizard is cool! Such a fascinating place.

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  8. Thanks Loree, I didn't even know that this gorgeous and fascinating place existed. Mr. Blue is quite handsome. Was there an interpretive sign for the sasquatch looking creature? In the second picture, he looks like he might be guarding his territory. He seems to be weilding a weapon of some sort. You know that it's a federal offense to remove wildlife from a national park, right? I hope you weren't tempted to take him home with you.

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    1. Uh-oh. He was so cute, and friendly, that I did take him home with me. He left the weapon behind though.

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  9. Wow...that is amazing...so utterly surreal!

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    1. You'd have some fun with your camera there Scott!

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  10. I'm wanting to pin that blue lizard on my dress. It would be dismissed as "artistic license" if a jeweler came up with that color combo. And now I see how Georgia O'Keefe arrived at some of her sky paintings. Hard to see how this visit could have been any more impressive.

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    1. You've reminded me of the lady in Seattle who used to wear a live beetle on her dress. It had an elaborate gold harness and chain so it could wander around a bit.

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    2. Chameleons used to be sold at fairs. As they wandered, they would change color to match changing background colors. This was pre-animal rights activism.

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  11. No sign to explain how it got its name? ;)

    Would you rather have visited the day after record rainfall, or the day of the record rainfall?

    I love the landscape photos that show the sky. Stunning!

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    1. There's no way we would have set out for this adventure during the record rainfall. Just driving around town was scary enough.

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  12. Wow Loree, that is amazing. I enjoyed seeing your visit. I've passed near it so many times but never took the time to visit. We're stopping next time.

    You should link this to Pam's series on national parks.

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    1. Oh Shirley yes! You need to stop...

      Thanks for the reminder, I planned to link this post as well as a couple of others. Better get over there and do that.

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  13. Beautiful post Loree. I've been to NM many times, but always ABQ and north. I love NM and it always has a sort of profound spiritual ( secular spiritual if there is such thing) effect on me. It's really time I get back to that area. Thanks for the reminder !

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    1. How exciting! A NM vacation in your future, and there is so much to see there. This is the first trip I've made off the I-25, I-10 route. I hope to be able to explore more.

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  14. The Blue-tailed lizard is so adorable! So many fantastic dune plants, and amazing cloud formations. Thanks for the desert visit.

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  15. It looks like it snowed. Nice to see it, thank you.

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  16. You may not have seen white-on-white vistas, but the plants are very cool, plus they give perspective to the landscape. I'm laughing about Andrew as Sasquatch. And I can't believe they shut down the National Park website. Good grief.

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  17. It looks stunning with all that white sand and the plants scattered around. Andrew steals the show though!

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  18. I am sorry you couldn't see more of the site, but judging from the photos you made the most of what you had access to. All that blue sky and white ground, one might think it was a snowy winter scene.

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