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| Backpack | 4.00 Miles |
250 AEG |
| | Backpack | 4.00 Miles | 2 Days | | |
| 250 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Took a few fine folks from the ABC to New Mexico - a part of my 2011 pledge to spend more time south of the "AZ Line" (hypothetically located between Casa Grande and Picacho Peak). Not only did I LOVE the White Sands, but the Organ Mountains really called to me, and I felt as though Ruidoso was teasing me with it's lights high on the mountains. Hmmmmm.....
We arrived at the park at around 3:30pm, after a very fun road trip from Tucson (including hat shopping at the truck stop in Lordsburg and stuffed hotdogs and sopapillas in Las Cruces). They told us that if we arrived after 4:20 that we'd be out of luck for camping permits, because they didn't want us out "wandering the dunes" in the dark. Well - their estimate of an hour from the visitor center to the campground would not have been at all accurate if we had spent a little less time carefully packing our gear, but ended up paying off. Laden like we were on a week-long trek through a waterless wilderness, we set off from the parking area at about 4:30, only to stumble upon our assigned camping depression less than half an hour later. It really was a breeze of a walk, but long enough to make us feel completely isolated from anyone else in the world. Fantastic.
Although the moon was nearly full, hiking at night turned out to be more difficult than you'd imagine. First, it's cold out there - our first night saw temps in the low twenties. Second, moonlight doesn't give you the same depth-discerning abilities as the sun. It's all a big, white, featureless blanket. It's very disconcerting, but also quite fun (suddenly, you're going up hill, oops, now down, oops, that spot's not going to support your weight!).
Day 2 we split into two groups: the football fans who drove into Alamagordo to watch the Bears game at Applebee's, and the group who actually came to camp and hike, who wandered about the park doing various hikes, hitting the tops of a few tall dunes and generally misbehaving (spelled s_l_e_d_s).
Night 2 was about 10 degrees warmer, which certainly helped a lot, but still made for a chilly morning. We talked about heading out and doing the Alkali Flat trail, but most of us just wanted to head home. Interesting...Phoenix folks sure do talk up that "extra 2 hours" of driving time when they come down south  Too bad they don't calculate it in MY travel time when I head north!
A few things to note if you're wanting to camp/backpack/explore the beautiful gypsum dunes of New Mexico:
- Although none of the brochures or rangers will tell you so, foxes can be a problem in your campsite. They don't just steal your food, they steal the pot you cooked it in, the bag you stored it in, the plate you ate it from. You will never see these things again. Looking is futile, and they leave mysterious footprints just to mislead you. Better to store your food in your tent or better - at the bottom of your sleeping bag.
- The sleds at the visitor center, with a little wax and human ingenuity, make excellent cargo sleds. Just don't let them hit you on the heels as you descend the dunes.
- Gallon jugs stored out in the open on 22deg. nights tend to freeze solid, and thus do not make very good coffee in the morning.
- If you are a fan of small, local restaurants with vegetarian fare, good beer and TVs to watch a Bears game, Alamagordo is evidently not the place to be on Sunday morning.
- You do need to get a new permit each night that you camp on the dunes - which means that you will have to visit the Visitor Center each day of your stay. Not a big deal, since you'll probably want to walk out to the parking area to use the bathroom anyway (the dunes don't offer much in the way of cover).
- Ben and Jerry's Coffe Heath Bar Crunch tastes freaking awesome at the top of a gypsum dune, and I think that a $5 cowboy hat and aviator glasses improve it even more.
- The best way to ensure that people sled or tromp all over the pristine dunes and write rude messages in the sand is to put up a sign saying "This area is for nature study - please drive to the south end of the park for sand play." This way you save the south end of the park from these silly activities.
- Leaving your camera on the dining room table before a trip to White Sands is only minimally more idiotic than leaving your shoes on the same table before hiking in Sycamore Canyon. All of my pictures came from either Tiffani or Derrick - thanks for sharing guys!
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Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.- Barack Obama |
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