What Is All This White Sand Doing Here?
Who would have thought that you'd find a national park tucked between an air force base and a missile range? But that's exactly where this wonderland of 275 s quare miles of white gypsum sand dunes exist in south-central New Mexico. Established as a national monument in 1933 by President Herbert Hoover, Congress recently re-designated it as a national park. Finally, something our representatives could agree upon! It's the 46th U.S. National Park we've visited in the past 8 years, and like many others, it had our jaws dragging on the ground. Why are there dunes in the middle of this desert? You might be used to seeing sand dunes at the edge of water like in Oregon and Michigan. But, these dunes were created by an ancient sea, glacial runoff, and an ephemeral lake, which appears in times of plenty and then evaporates as quickly as it came. These are the visible remains of the ever evolving dance between water, rock, and wind. ...