White Sands

From our camp near Carlsbad Cavern, we headed north for a quick pit stop at Brantley Lake State Park to dump and fill our tanks, then west, over the Sierra Blanca range to White Sands. I had hoped to stay a night or two in the Lincoln National Forest outside of Cloudcroft, NM, but after speaking with the local ranger station we determined the ground was likely still covered in snow or at least very saturated. So, instead we climbed the 8000+ ft pass at night and descended back down the other side to Alamogordo, NM and Holloman Air Force Base without ever getting a good look at the area.

We did notice a few elk along the dark shoulder of the highway and quite a lot of snow near the summit. I’m always captivated by these “island in the sky” environments that develop when tall mountains are isolated by surrounding lowland desert. We put Cloudcroft on our list of places to check out “next time around.”

On the western edge of the airbase is Holloman Lake, a scenic wastewater pond that offers free camping and has become all the rage for the Instagram #VanLife crowd. And not without reason… Despite the unappealing nature of the water, it makes an excellent reflecting pool for the already incredible New Mexico sunsets. The rugged, arid and wide open landscape combined with the typically wispy scattered clouds makes the sky look like a painting and helped us quickly understand how New Mexico got the nickname “the land of enchantment.”

The public access to this area is a small and not very well marked turnoff directly off US Hwy 70 and immediately through a tight cattle gate, so getting in and out can be a little tricky. It seems like you are on the military base, but the parcel of land where people can camp is actually BLM. We watched F-16s and MQ-9 Reaper drones taking off and landing at the nearby runway, which was a bonus for the aviation nerd.

The other nice thing about this boondocking location is White Sands National Park is less than five miles down the road. The park consists of a 275 sq mile gypsum dunefield, the largest in the world. There is a visitor center and some boardwalk nature trails near the edge of the dunefield, but the best part of this park is a road that stretches deep into the middle of the dunes, with large parking areas and picnic facilities spaced regularly along the route.

Anywhere you like, you can pull over and climb the dunes, sled down them or wander across miles of wind rippled gypsum. The gypsum is courser than typical beach sand, but it doesn’t heat up from the sun like sand and it is surprising comfortable to walk on. And, of course, the sunsets were amazing.

This may have been Ben’s favorite part of the whole trip. This kid really loves dirt.