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 By Kevin Franklin JUST BELOW THE surface, the warm sand is cold to the touch. My bare feet tingle with the conflicting sensation as I work them through the pure white sand that stretches for 275 square miles around me. Rolling like a great white sea, its glare hurts my eyes.
For an instant I'm a little concerned I jumped too high, like an ill-fated astronaut who manages to jump himself into escape velocity and floats hopelessly away during a spacewalk gone awry. I hit the ground tumbling, with an impressive roll across the sand from which I emerge looking like the loser in a flour fight. The jump was a good one, and my record stands as fellow UA Geology Club members leap like madmen and madwomen off the glaring dune. We are, of course, in the White Sands National Monument 54 miles northeast of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Geologists consider the white sands unusual because they consist primarily of gypsum. Soluble in water, gypsum rarely survives long enough to create piles of sand. Generally it dissolves into streams and rivers and ultimately gets carried off to the sea. In the Tularosa Basin, where White Sands Monument is located, the basin is closed. All the water draining off the San Andres Mountains (the tail-end of the Rockies, not the infamous California fault system) collects in Lake Lucero on the western edge of the Monument. Once trapped in the lake, the water quickly evaporates under the New Mexico sun, leaving behind vast amounts of gypsum. The gypsum sometimes grows into three-foot long selenite crystals. As the elements start working on the gypsum, the crystals break down into small grains. These grains are carried away by the wind and deposited onto the dune field, replenishing the sand supply.
The sport of sledding takes on an authentic Southwestern twist here. Saucers and sleds spice up the downhill side of navigation. Keep in mind that sand has a lot more friction than snow and fails to pack into hard runs, so a saucer that barely works for someone in snow will fail here. In general the lighter the person and the larger the surface, the better. Avoid sliding onto the road and into oncoming traffic, as a few unfortunate zealots reportedly have before. The Monument is completely surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range, and for that reason access is sometimes necessarily restricted. The schedule for tests fluctuates throughout the year, but is generally known well in advance. Call ahead to ensure passage. While dune diving, we run into a park ranger looking for the hooligans who threw beer cans and other garbage around the dunes. Human arrogance never fails to astonish. It's enough to wish for giant sand worms to come devour them. You never know--Alamagordo, home of the first atomic bomb, is only 15 miles away.
GETTING THERE
White Sands National Monument lies 54 miles northeast of Las
Cruces on Highway 70/82. Only a primitive backcountry campsite
is available for overnighters, but three public campgrounds lie
within 35 miles of the Monument. A trip might best be run in conjunction
with a visit to Alamagordo, Cloudcroft, El Paso or other nearby
sights. For more information contact White Sands National Monument,
PO Box 1086, Holloman AFB, NM 88330-1086; or call (505) 479-6124.
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The slip face of a giant barchan dune looms 15 feet ahead of
me. I take a deep breath and sprint. I hit the leading edge of
the dune at top speed and sail off into space. The edge of the
dune falls away steeply on the leeward side so, like jumping off
a cliff, I stay airborne much longer than I'd expected.
But even without understanding the remarkable set of geologic
circumstances behind it, the sight of a vast sea of nearly pure
white sand leaves an indelible impression. To get a true feel
for the dune field, you can't just glance at it from Highway 70.
Even standing on the wall at the 