1-2 Sunset during the park ranger led Sunset Stroll at White Sands
3-4 Day hike along the Dune Life Nature Trail
5-6 Dark clouds with virga in the distance
7- “Pedestal” formed by plant roots on the Dune Life Nature Trail
8- New Mexico Museum of Space History; notice White Sands NP is visible in the distance
9- Roadrunner statue made out of recycled materials at a rest stop west of Las Cruces
10- “Organ Pipe” section along the Bonita Canyon Drive at Chiricahua NM
11- Look out for coatis!
12- View from Massai Point Nature Trail
13-14 Balancing rock and hoodoos as far as you can see on the Echo Canyon trail
15- Yucca in bloom along the Echo Canyon trail
My husband and I made a road trip from Arizona to White Sands National Park (NM) and Chiricahua National Monument (AZ) the first weekend of May. We spent two nights in Alamogordo (the closest town to White Sands) and one near Willcox for access to the Chiricahuas.
Even though we are desert dwellers, White Sands was like nothing we had seen before! The dunes can be anything from a blinding white midday to a rosy pink at sunset and are constantly shifting. Plants have adapted to this challenging environment with root systems that capture the surrounding sand, forming “pedestals” when the dune moves away. The sand is deposited over 275 sq. miles, extending well beyond the park borders.
Just past the Visitor Center is the Dune Drive, an 8 mile/13K out-and-back road into the park. There are 5 hiking trails in the park marked by brightly colored poles as there aren't any landmarks and it's easy to get disoriented. We made several trips to the park exploring different areas. Our first hike was the Dune Life trail. This is closer to the entrance of the park and where more plant life can be found. We explored part of the Alkali Flats trail on our second day. This trail is the furthest one with fewer people.
Every night there is a free ranger-led Sunset Stroll, which lasts about an hour. It can be cancelled if the weather is unfavorable, like our first night at the park. The second night there were still clouds, but the hike was on. The stroll was very informative and we enjoyed learning about the animals found there and more about how the dunes formed.
While in Alamogordo, we also explored the New Mexico Museum of Space History, which has an impressive collection that starts on the 5th floor and takes visitors down each level to view exhibitions and interactive displays related to space. There are also rockets, missiles and other space-related displays outside the museum. The museum is on a hillside and White Sands NP is visible in the distance as a thin white strip.
The next morning we headed back to Arizona, stopping in the historic village of Mesilla just outside of Las Cruces on the way. Some of the buildings were made of adobe back in the mid 1800’s and now house galleries, boutiques and restaurants. Mesillas is probably best known for being where Billy the Kid was on trial before he managed to escape. There was a Cinco de Mayo Festival that weekend and we enjoyed performances by Mariachi and Folklorio groups in the Mesilla plaza along with food and craft booths lining the square.
We spent the night at a farm/winery south of Willcox and travelled about 30 minutes south to get to Chiricahua National Monument the following morning. This park is known for its eroded rocks that form a large range of hoodoos, but there is abundant plant life at the bottom of the range. Bonita Creek flows at the bottom and allows much more vegetation than would be expected in the desert.
We drove the 8 mile drive up the Canyon to Massai Point, which takes you to 6870 ft/2894 m in elevation. There we hiked the short (but steep) nature trail that overlooks the rock formations. We also walked much of the nearby Echo Canyon Grotto Trail. This path is a roughly one mile hike and you become surrounded by rock formations in places. There are over a dozen trails at Chiricahua of various levels of difficulty. There is no fee to enter the park.
Both White Sands and Chiricahua National Monument are out of the way and off the beaten path, but are uniquely beautiful and certainly worth exploring!