How You Dune? Part 3

But, what about Part 2?  Don't miss that!

Getting ready to take a hike

In the last blog, we'd started our day in White Sands National Park, and Chris and I were about to head off on our hike on the Backcountry Camping Loop (referred to as the "Loop" from this point on).  White Sands NP is pretty small, overall - nowhere the size of Yellowstone, for example (although not much really is) - and if you're ready for a proper hike, you have only a few options.  Since my ankle still isn't back to 100% after the debacle leading up to the Long Beach races, we eschewed the longer, five-mile Alkali Flat Trail option and instead went with the two-mile Loop.  

Starting the Loop

We figured that would get us working out for a decent period of time and let us see some cool sights without absolutely destroying us for the rest of the trip.  Like Alkali Flat, the Loop path marches right over the top of some of the bigger dunes in the park; there's not really a trail per se, but instead, hikers rely on a series of orange posts planted in the sand to ensure they're going in the right direction (it's a pretty popular trail, so unless you went on a day when literally no one was there, it would take a concerted effort to get really, really lost).  

One of our guideposts

And there's another one,

on top of that dune

We really enjoyed this hike - it took us about an hour total, what with finding the next orange post, going up and down the dunes, and stopping to take roughly 7000 pictures.  Here's just a few:

We talked a lot about fluid dynamics on this hike.

Also, we are nerds.

Heading up a bigger dune...

I made it!

It was so cool to see the patterns in the sand; 

those made by the wind,

any moisture that might wander by (not a lot),

and the shoe and feet patterns of fellow travelers.

You can see a set of small animal prints

to the left of the shoe marks in the shot above.

I mean, if I had skis on my feet,

this could easily be snow, right?

It was a bit easier to hike up and down the slopes of the dunes than I thought - while some were loose and involved a true scramble to get to the top, others were much more hard-packed than they initially looked, and the climb was pretty easy.  Given the ankle issues, and the potential instability of walking across two miles of loose sand, I brought my hiking poles for this adventure (their maiden voyage), and while I did use them the entire time, you could easily hike the dunes without them.

As we rounded the final corner back toward the parking lot, we saw Jen, Bryan, and the boys coming to greet us!  They figured correctly that we'd be finishing up around this time, and we shared our thoughts - and pictures - of what we'd been doing for the past hour in this magnificent landscape.  We all decided lunch was very much the next order of the day, so we headed to one of the nearby picnic areas.  The picnic areas at White Sands are super neat; while there are a few large ramadas for groups, most of the areas had a scattering of single picnic tables, protecting park goers from wind and sun with these neat metal shade structures.  I tried to grab a few shots of them on my own, but the one from the Park Service website is better than mine:

See all the cool little dudes?

They were so cute, dotting the landscape,

and obviously, they're perfect for social distancing.

Ah, the American West - 

social distancing is built into our genetic makeup.

If only we could tell the direction the wind

normally comes from...

Time for noms!

We each enjoyed our version of an adult picnic lunch; Chris and I had a portable charcuterie platter with salami, cheese, apples, and pistachios, while Jen and Bryan had lunchmeat wraps and all sorts of cool dips with homemade, gluten-free crackers.  After chatting and noshing for an hour or so, it was time to clean up lunch and get ready for our post-meal activity: dune sledding!

According to the ranger we talked to at the gift shop earlier in the day, sledding the dunes is allowed pretty much anywhere in the park, but they generally direct people to the northern end of the driving loop; the dunes are bigger there, and there's less vegetation (she may have also made a comment, sotto voce, about not all of the tourists understanding the importance of not sledding into a yucca).  When we looked around our lunch spot and saw that pretty much everyone was sledding here, we decided we didn't need to venture further, and we busted out our plastic discs and sled wax.  

Waxing up our ride

While driving to our hiking location, we saw some folks using modified snowboards for sledding (sledboards? duneboards?), and we also witnessed a few hardier souls with cardboard, but almost everyone had the same setup we did - hard, plastic discs in a wide variety of sizes and colors.  I scrambled up our section of the dune first and started on my first run down the hill.  As you can see in the photos and video below, I did not make smooth progress - once a run was established and we had a harder-packed trail, the sledding was much easier, but getting it there was a bit stop and go at first.

Working my way up the dune

It was loose all the way up,

and this got my heart rate going.

See all the sand I'm kicking up?

That's the same amount we all poured

out of each shoe once we finished this excursion.

Whew!  Time for a break!

I love that Chris' attention clearly wanders at the end of this video.

It could not have been exciting filming this.

I finally made it!

Bogey is like, "Auntie Amy,

it's so much nicer to lie here and sand your belly."

With the trail broken, though, it was fast fun from there:

The boys heading up

Chris zooming down

Bryan and Bronx starting their run

And making it to the bottom

Jen starts her climb

And begins her run,

while the kiddo waits for her at the bottom

As I mentioned in the last blog, sledding was great fun, and no one hurt anything at all, which has to be some sort of record for this particular group of individuals (all of us are fairly clumsy/accident prone). After leaving our sleds and sled wax for the next group who could make use of them, we all hopped back in our trucks and finished up our time in the park; we did the upper dunes loop drive once more and then headed out, bidding adieu to this incredible place.  

Following Bryan, Jen, and the puppers

I am so, so glad we visited White Sands NP; there are a few other dunes areas in different parts of the west/southwest (I think Colorado has a dunes area, and there's one off the 8 on the way to San Diego), but overall, it's a landscape we don't often see.  It was so neat to hike and play on the dunes, and the otherworldly setting has a distinct beauty all its own. If you're ever near this area, I truly can't recommend it highly enough, particularly because it's easy to see in one day (we were there about 4 hours total, and we felt well satisfied with our visit).

In the next blog, um, do you think we went 15 miles out of our way to see the world's largest pistachio?  If you've been reading this blog for even one hot minute, then you know that DAMN RIGHT WE DID!

Later!

Amy