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White Sands National Monument, New Mexico
Click, click, saddle up, see you on the moon then
Words can not really describe what it is like at White Sands, although that doesn't mean I'm still not going to give it a try. "Desolate" isn't quite right although it is an accurate description. "White" is too obvious and "abstract" is a little, well, abstract. Maybe "other worldly" or "alien landscape" is close enough to give you an idea, although nothing will quite prepare you for seeing it in person.
Imagine if you will a desolate alien landscape, with white sand dunes covered in abstract patterns in all directions, a disorientating other worldly reality stretching in all visible landscapes. If you can imagine that then maybe, just maybe, you can picture what it was like at White Sands National Monument, a really amazing park that is often closed when the US Government recklessly attacks it with missiles (the park is literally surrounded by the White Sands Missile Range and is closed during testing). The farther you drive in the more amazing it gets and (unlike the killjoy park rangers at most parks) you're allowed to park where you want and explore and walk all over the dunes wherever you want. You can follow your footprints back to your rental car safe in the knowledge that while they might get you back to your car they won't last long- wind shapes and reshapes amazing patterns throughout the dunes, a close up marvel in a landscape where things like scale are otherwise non existent.
Another few views of all that white sand, this time along a loop trail into the back country, where high orange poles mark the trail and footprints are everywhere. Unlike most short day trails, this one included a sign in/sign out sheet at the trailhead- a smart precaution since it is very, very easy to wander off the trail and find yourself totally lost fairly quickly, all in a park and area desolate in its setting, completely without cell phone coverage and prone to sudden closures because of incoming missiles.
When I was eleven years old I first visited Carlsbad Caverns on a family trip, taking the elevator down to the aptly named Great Room and enjoying what we could in a stopover between western Texas and (eventually) the Colorado Rockies. At the time seeing the bats fly out of the natural entrance of the cave was totally out of the question, not because it would delay the trip but because an unnamed family member had (and still has) an irrational fear of bats. As an eleven year old the idea of seeing millions of bats flying out of the cave at dusk seemed pretty damn amazing, as someone now far, far older, it still seems just as amazing. When work brought me to that part of the country (Las Cruces to be exact), my first thought was to drive out to Carlsbad to see the bats, but alas the bats had other plans. It turns out that they really only summer at Carlsbad and spend the winter somewhere in Mexico (hopefully nowhere near Juarez if they value their little bat lives). Hopefully work will take me back to that part of the country (the randomness of it often works in my favor), but until then I'll just imagine for a few more decades just how amazing seeing all those bats flying out of the cave at dusk really is.
This by the way is the natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns, where the path starts in light but ends in darkness as it drops some 750 feet into the rock. An amazing journey and one that makes taking the elevator seem like some sort of crime.
From that natural entrance, things go downhill (literally) all the way to the Great Room, where ceilings are as high as a thirty story building, or at least so they day. It's hard to really feel scale so far underground, although it is really easy to feel the space and see all of the magnificent details and formations that the cavern has to offer. And while I am appreciative of all of the artificial light provided so you can see your way and see where you are, I'm a bit torn as to whether or not such lighting is really the right way to see such a place. The park service does offer flashlight only tours of other accessible areas of the caverns, something I very well may look into when I go back to see those damn bats once and for all.
Not nearly as popular as Carlsbad Caverns or White Sands, the (relatively) brand new National Park at Guadalupe Mountains may be pretty but it's a one start attraction surrounded by five star attractions on all sides. Still I made some time for it, just enough time to do a short three mile hike in the foothills as the sun started to set across that part of far western Texas.
A note about the photo. This is a High Dynamic Range (or HDR) image, a combination of three bracketed photos taken in quick succession from my DSLR. The three images with far different exposures are then combined using a computer program (I use Photomatrix Pro), sometimes creating a great image, although just as often it creates an odd over filtered mess. Where they seem most helpful are photos like this one looking directly into the sun, or interior photos where both the darker interior and brighter through window exterior view start to be visible, just like real life. I'm still- months later- trying to decide whether or not to take HDR images, and you'll see this indecision throughout the slideshow.
