White Sands National Park, NM - Alkali Flat Trail

State: New Mexico

Trailhead: https://maps.app.goo.gl/4L1vhM9ePRafFXv18

Park: White Sands National Park

Length: 4.5 miles

Elevation: 52 feet

Fee: Standard National Park Fees

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Jagged yucca and thorned mesquite trees transition to smooth and serpentine dunes. The tans and ochres of the valley give way to strikingly white ridges of sand, layered against each other like vanilla soft serve ice cream. White Sands National Park rises suddenly out of the Chihuahuan Desert like another dimension, even a portal, in the harsh landscape of the surrounding canyons and scrubland. 

On a warm April day, the wind gusts and races over the gypsum dunes. It howls, lifting small and shining specs of sand into the atmosphere and clouding out the sun. The particles shimmer and glitter against the dark shapes of the San Andres Mountains. In the distance, the looming clouds of a thunderstorm yield to a rare site in the Chihuahuan Desert - a rainbow. It’s only a quarter rainbow, but its hues brilliantly contrast against the beige mesa. 

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The Sacramento Mountains loom to the east of the park. Sierra Blanca’s peak, speckled with snow into spring, rises in the distance to nearly 12,000 feet. The San Andres Mountains to the west create the dramatic backdrop for the park’s renowned sunsets. The sky sets itself aflame every night - a moment of self-immolation that will make even the grumpiest tourist sit in awe. 

White Sands National Park is one of my havens. A quick 1 hour drive from my home in Texas, this is where I come to celebrate, grieve, relax, and release. I’ve driven here often after clocking out of work. And I've occasionally made the drive on a whim at the end of the weekend - sometimes lured by fthe rare site of snow on gypsum dunes. 

But more-so, I’ve learned to feel happy being alone here. Feeling alone in a place this remarkable can be a balm to the pang of isolation. The desert is a desolate place. But she’s rarely more dazzling than when her desolation lends you her company and introspection. 

The Alkali Flat Trail, a loop path, is one of only three trails in the park and the longest at 4.5 miles. This trail is where a hiker will find the best views from the highest dunes in the park. Red stakes mark the path. Some of these stakes are half buried. As a repeat visitor may find, the dunes are constantly shifting, often burying trail markers or informative signing along the way. The park is a landscape in constant flux.

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If you're looking for a burst of color, visit during November when the Skunkbush Sumac's leaves transition from green to a deep autumnal orange. Often the Sumacs will sprout from the top of sculpture-like pedestals. These pillar-like sand formations are created when plant roots bind the gypsum sand together. The pedestals also provide a cooler environment for local critters, like the elusive kit fox who uses the structures as dens for its young, when the days run long and hot.

While this landscape has the illusion of emptiness, it is a highly specialized, fragile, and busy biological community. The most unique feature of the wildlife at White Sands National Park  is adaptive bleaching. Because the gypsum dunes are only about 7,000 to 10,000 years old, the animals have undergone some of the fastest evolutionary color changes ever recorded to blend in with the stark white dunes.

There's also a bit of manmade history to been seen on the Alkali Flat's Trail. If you're walking the loop clockwise, approximately 3/4s of the way through, you will see a sign that reads: Danger Unexploded Munitions, Area Closed Beyond This Point. White Sands National Park is entirely surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), the largest military installation in the United States. While I wouldn’t be too concerned by the signage, a hiker should still heed the warning and stay on trail.

Lend White Sands your time and she'll give you a sense of peace, her unique gift of reciprocity. She is a landscape of extreme austerity but magnanamous beauty.

She embodies the subtlety of nature; the small ripples of sand created by shifting winds, the scant tracks of a nocturnal hunter, the remnant of a colorful butterfly wing deposited gently on a dune. She's the wind flowing through a Sumac's autumn foliage, a rainbow after a sudden rainstorm in the desert, and the Alkali Sacaton grass swaying in the amber of Golden Hour.

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And White Sands is a teacher of transience. Stay here long enough and you'll come to appreciate the futility of permanence in nature. She is always changing and always shifting.

The dunes will morph with the weather. The rainbow will fade. The Sumac's foliage will fall to the sand below. The sun will eventually set, with darkness bleeding into the sky overhead. And as a hiker or visitor, you'll be left with a memory of something deeply gorgeous, something deeply fleeting that you can't possess - but instead can only hope to capture and appreciate in the stillness of the moment.

--Happy Hiking!