White Sands

2025-09-21
AZ and White Sands NM

Today could have been planned better, but I blame the internet. I had a few things on my list for the White Sands area - White Sands National Park, White Sands Missile Range Museum, and Pistachio World. The tricky one was the museum which is closed either on Sunday or Monday, depending on which web page you believe. They don't have a phone number either, just an email address which apparently does not have one-hour turnaround. So my original docs said it was closed Monday and open 11-4 today, so I figured I'd visit Pistachio World for a while and then head to the museum which opened later.

Thus this morning was at Pistachio World, home of the World's Largest Pistachio. It's another concrete roadside attraction; they don't have Paul Bunyan tending the largest pistachio tree or anything like that. They also have plenty of pistachios for sale (I bought a pound or so) and their home-made ice cream, where unsurprisingly pistachio is the premiere flavor. They also make their own wine. Mostly normal wines, but they do have a pistachio wine where they add pistachio oil to a normal wine; they aren't fermenting the nuts themselves. They also have a tour of the farm, which is a surprisingly long 45 minutes to go basically around the block (of pistachio trees and grape vines). It is fairly interesting, although I was focused on the pistachios and considered the grapevine information to be filler. They really went nuts with the bad puns.

After the tour I told google maps to take me to the missile range, and it said it wouldn't open until tomorrow. I looked at a few web pages, and the preponderance agreed. Short of driving there to find out, I have no way of knowing. And because it's on a military base, it can be a bit nerve-wracking to just go ask. So I did the next best thing and headed for the National Park.

It quickly became apparent that I should have done the park in the morning, which was the plan for tomorrow. However, once there I made the best of it. The white sand is from gypsum. It dissolves from rocks in the mountains and washes down into a lake. When the lake dries, large crystals are formed. They say up to the size of a bike tire although I didn't see the crystals so take that with a grain of gypsum. The crystals erode and are worn by the wind until the grain size is small enough to be classified as "sand." The dunes do walk, but the relatively high water table keeps the sand a bit sticky so it doesn't completely blow away.

They have a 1 mile nature trail on the outer edges of the dunes, where most of the indigenous species live (though probably not in this exact section). While I only saw plants, it was good to stretch my legs. I drove into the heart of the dunes, where people mainly go to slide down the dunes on plastic saucers. With my ankle I wasn't going to risk walking up the dunes so I did not partake of this. Also, I took my sunglasses off to try to compose a shot and was nearly blinded by the noon glare from the dunes. They are very white. I think even with some dune sliding, this is a half-day park (preferably in the morning). It's pretty cool, but kind of a one-trick pony. Sunsets are supposed to be nice too and would certainly lead to better pictures but since I couldn't get to the top of the dunes I didn't go back.

The road and the parking areas are just plowed down to the hard pack. I expect that they have to move them as the dunes walk, and I did see places where they had recently plowed the drifting sand off the road. I'm not exactly sure what they do with the pit toilets though; perhaps those get dug up and slid along too.

Hiking distance: 1.0 miles