After our day at Guadalupe Mountains National Park we started moving in a westward direction for the remainder of our southwest tour, until it was time to turn north for home. As we started back west, the next stop on the list was White Sands National Park. White Sands only became a national park in 2019 but was designated as a national monument way back in 1933. The main feature of the park are the white sand dunes, the largest gypsum dune field in the world.
After our day underground at the Carlsbad Caverns it was time to get back out into the sunshine. Before heading out on this trip I had never heard of the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. After studying the map, we were going to be too close not to go, and it was a very pleasant surprise. We were a few days into December but the fall colors were on full display in Pine Spring Canyon as we hiked up to the Devil’s Hall.
After our day in Roswell learning all about aliens, it was time to move on to something a bit more real, if every bit as fantastical. 250 million years ago southeastern New Mexico and western Texas were covered by the Delaware sea. Millions of years of uplift later the reef filled with large mineral deposits and fossils turned to the land we now call the Guadalupe Mountains. Groundwater reacting with these minerals formed acids that…