White Sands National Park

 Closures May Cramp My Camp

We camped the last two nights at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park in Alamogordo, NM. A desert park situated at the base of the Sacramento Mountains, it had a pretty view of the valley below and the mountains immediately behind us. From here we could see the famed White Sands, Holloman Air Force Base, and a lot rocks, cacti, loose sand, and signs warning of rattlesnakes. Won't it be good to get back to Florida where rattlesnakes exist, but not signs on every trail post warning about them? My heart aches to see an alligator warning for a change.

Camping right at the base of the Sacramento Mountains.

The view across the valley to the San Andres Mts.

In spite of DOGE layoffs and the government shutdown, we have not been greatly impacted by National Park closures. (Grand Canyon North Rim was partially open, as was Saguaro NP.) It was the same at White Sands NP. Two trails were still open, and these were trails we wanted to hike anyway. The Dunes Nature Trail had a number of interpretive signs, as did the Playa Trail.

The Dunes supported more plant and animal life than I expected...

...and some former life.
But we learned at Theodore Roosevelt NP that the dead supports the living.
Roadrunners hide in and under the dead trees.

White Sands NP has one particularly interesting alert on its website. The park might be closed because of WHAT?? 

Boom, baby!

White Sands NP is surrounded on 3 sides by White Sands Missile Range, with Holloman AFB on the fourth side. A National Park at an active missile range? Must be a government operation...

If you saw the movie Oppenheimer you might recall Trinity Site, where, in 1945, the first atomic bomb was tested. Trinity Site was part of the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, later renamed White Sands Missile Range. So they put a National Park where a radioactive bomb was exploded. Can you say residual radiation? Definitely a government operation!

Next stop: Carlsbad, NM, where Carlsbad Caverns NP is closed for now, but we're hoping for an act of Congress, or a divine miracle, that it will open. If not, we will visit Sitting Bull Falls, about an hour away from our campground. Waterfalls in the desert? This I have to see.

P.S. Thanks, Kyle, for telling Dad I needed to go shoe shopping. The new shoes prevented slippage on the sandy trails at our campground and White Sands NP! Boom, baby!