White Sands National Park
As we continued our hike to the top of the dune we saw mountains in the distance, a daytime moon overhead, and miles of stark white stand dunes. Most of it seemed untouched by man for centuries but in fact it's only 50 miles from the second largest city in New Mexico. We gazed over the white sands and wondering how it all got there. We finally saw a few other people walk up another dune in the distance and slide down the dune on circular sleds. Was this a recreational area or a nature preserve? Did I mention that we were only a few miles from one of the largest missile testing sites in the United States? Find out all of those answers when Patrick at the Parks go to White Sands National Parks. Let's start from the beginning of how this white sand dune was created. Well in all honesty it's not sand, its a substance called gypsum. The gypsum formed in the Tularosa Basin around 12,000 years ago when the basin used to be a lake. gypsum is soluble in water but when that water d...