22 Mar White Sand National Park

This NP visit was perfectly timed, the experience would have been much different had we arrived in the hotter months. When we arrived the weather was in the 70’s and went up to 87’ before a storm rolled in and dropped to the low 40’s all within the span of a couple hours!

The visitors center is always our first stop when we get inside a NP to grab a map and get a lay of the land before getting started. Taking time to chat with rangers in each park we have visited, has been a great way to plan our days. They are full of great info and always take their time to answer any questions we can come up with.

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While at the visitor center you can grab a sled for the dunes, 20$ for a new one and 15$ for used. If you bring the sled back with a receipt the will refund you 15$…so it ends up costing $5.00 (and a little patience to stand in line when you are ready to leave the park:)

*Pro tip you need to wax your sled to get some speed!! They were sold out when we were visiting, and I realized you really do need it to gain some good speed. We had a blast running up and down the dunes like big kids on the playground, I imagine this activity would be near impossible to enjoy if it were in the 90’s-100’s.

To get those amazing photos you will need some contrasting light, we drove back into the park and were blown away at the sunset. It truly felt like being on another planet, an incredible experience. Be careful wandering away from your car, we stayed until the last of the light left the skies and got a little nervous when we came over the dunes and realized we had lost our car!! Everything in white..everything including the road and all the dunes begin to look similar. The park road is a variety of looping roads, so we made it to a road and ended up finding our car just after things got real dark. Clouds rolled in so we never got to enjoy the stars which I am sure are incredible from here, they have some amazing night guided tours when weather permits.