White Sands is a really cool place and is another park that you can easily visit in a few hours, unless you plan to do backcountry hiking or camping. Toward the front of the park, the Dune Life Nature Trail (1 mile long) gives insight into the wildlife that populates the area. In this part of the park, there is a lot of scrubby vegetation among the bright white sand (which is actually the world's largest gypsum field). The hike is a good introduction to following the trail posts so as not to get lost in the dune environment. A little further into the park, the Interdune Boardwalk provides an accessible trail to learn about the dunes.
The highlight of the park for us was the automobile tour of the Dunes Drive, which is a scenic 8-mile park road that winds through the dunes. As you drive deeper into the park, there is less and less vegetation. The pure white sand dunes with no vegetation in sight can be found toward the end of the road. There are plenty of areas to pull over and park to look around and/or enjoy a picnic (or sled down the dunes).
We were fortunate to visit the park on an overcast, cool day, but could easily imagine how hard it would be to hike this park in the middle of summer. If you do visit the park, please heed the warnings about the heat and having enough water to drink!
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