10%

White Sands National Park

Dynamic landscapes, star-lit shapes

By Scott Richardson

March 15^th, 2020

The sparse, monochromatic dunes of White Sands flow like waves below the San Andres mountains that loom above. At first glance, the landscape all looks the same: blinding white dunes as far as the eye can see. As the day fades away, every crevice of the dune takes on more shape and the colors start to sparkle and dance.

The dynamic shapes of White Sands has lured me back several times. We first visited on a two-week road trip through New Mexico in 2012 as a quick day trip. In 2016, I found myself back in the area and couldn’t pass up another visit. I’d planned to camp out under the stars, but when clouds rolled in and kicked up a severe thunderstorm, I found myself running to the car and taking up shelter in nearby Alamogordo instead. I always felt like I had missed out on that experience.

So when I found myself back in the area once again in 2020, I thought it would be an easy detour to finally make that camping trip happen.

White Sands National Park

Experience White Sands National Park

Experience White Sands National Park just like I did, everything minus the feeling of sand stinging your skin in the wind. Use your mouse or phone to rotate the frame, or use a VR headset to feel like you’re there.

A big bump in the road

This visit to White Sands was in the middle of a quick trip based out of El Paso to visit the Guadalupe Mountains and Big Bend. I had scheduled a portion the trip to start at Guadalupe, make a quick stop at Carlsbad Caverns, then end at White Sands on the eve of driving back to El Paso to pickup my wife for the long drive down to Big Bend.

After a dust-filled few days camping on BLM land in southeast New Mexico, I splurged for a $40 campsite in Carlsbad so I clean up my gear and get myself a shower. The wind continued to whip my tent that night, and by 4:30am, I was ready to tear down and move on.

No matter how you get to White Sands, there are a lot of lonely roads to drive. However, the loneliest of all seems to be driving in the early morning hours from Carlsbad. The road runs mostly straight as you pass through dark desert landscapes for a few hours out of Artesia. A couple hours into the trip, you get to the Lincoln National Forest where the road starts to wind its way through the forest with a few sharp curves.

On a dark stretch of road around six in the morning, a deer ran into the road and dashed my hopes of arriving to White Sands when they opened the park gates at seven. Luckily, within an hour I had assistance from the New Mexico State Police in filing a report and had started formulating a route to switch out the rental car back in El Paso, two hours away.

With an hour to decompress, switch out the car and fuel up with coffee, I was back on the road and scheduled to arrive at White Sands by early afternoon.

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

Life in the dunes

The main feature of the park is its gypsum sand, white granules that have been washed down from the surrounding mountains and evaporated to leave hills of soft sand. Just off the park road, you’ll find signs of human life by the footprints that visitors have left behind. Signs of non-human life are less obvious.

The desolate landscape of the gypsum dunes and their surrounding Chihuahuan desert are home to many adaptable species, even if they’re rarely seen. Coyotes, bobcats, jackrabbits and kit foxes are adaptable to the arid climate. Grasses that have adapted to reach down into the soil below the dunes for water thrive, even while being partially buried by the shifting sand. Yucca plants grow up from the sandy floor. Beetles and other insects scavenge the plant materials and seeds on the ground.

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

Dynamic light

The blinding white expands into a full color palette as the sun sets. Long shadows turn blue, and the highlights of the sand take on a golden glow. When a wind picks up, sparkling particles of sand dance along the surface and shimmer in the early evening sun.

When the sun starts to set behind the nearby mountains, the landscape fades into a blue and purple pastel paradise. The remaining light provides a soft contrast that highlights all of the patterns, folds and lines in the sand.

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

A starry dream finally realized

It may have taken a few years to complete, but I finally paid my $3 fee, filled out a backcountry permit and walked a mile into the dune-field to setup camp.

The solitude and quiet is unmatched out there. There is nothing around to make a sound except for the rustling of grass or the shifting of sand.

In the early evening, the skies stayed clear and were only polluted by a bit of light from the nearby military base and town. Millions of stars came into view as the tail of the milky way rose above the horizon. It being February, the core of the milky way didn’t rise until the early morning, and by then the entire sky had clouded over.

I slept intermittently as the wind gusted up to 25mph against my tent, bringing the temperature to freezing which left me feeling ill-prepared and shivering for most of the night.

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

White Sands National Park

Even though I’d experienced White Sands several times before, this time was different. First, its designation had changed just a few weeks before to a national park, shedding the national monument name it carried since the 1930s. The park still carries tiny bits of infrastructure, including its well-spaced 10-site backcountry campground and minimal marked hiking trails. Second, getting to experience the dunes under the stars is unmatched by its day-time appearance. The darkness and haunting silence is mesmerizing, and is only scary in its ability to find yourself lost amongst the dunes in the middle of the night.

White Sands National Park

© 2026 Scott Richardson

Katmai National Park

February 10^th, 2026

Juneau & Kodiak

Where Pavement Ends and Wilderness Begins

Glacier Bay National Park

November 28^th, 2025

Big Bend National Park

September 7^th, 2025

Great Basin and Capitol Reef

September 4^th, 2025

Joshua Tree National Park

February 22^nd, 2025

Story Told With

Start publishing stories like this

Loading, please hold on.