Day 10 - White Sands National Park

Woke up early this morning 5am. Don't know why. But was a good thing with the time change coming up. I was able to get moving sooner. Breakfast done sooner and on the road to White Sands National Park.

When I got to the visitor center it was a whopping 102 degrees. This was going to be a fun day. I got the map checked out the easy routes. My whole day was really in my head one 2 mile trail. It said backcountry camping trail loop. But after yesterdays fun in the sun I wasn't sure I wanted a repeat. So I started off with the easy trails. The Playa Trail and the Interdune Trail before hitting a massive pull out area and climbing dune.

Playa Trail

Interdune Trail

Playa Trail

So the dune climbing was pretty crazy and I did not think I would do much more. But there I was standing outside my car. Full water bottle, full camelback. Extra stuff in the backpack. Standing staring at a dune in the parking lot of Backcountry Camping Trail. Of course I went. I mean 102 degrees, 2 miles, what could go wrong.

Yep that had to come out. Look when you see these pictures you will understand. I mean it was dunes , dunes and more dunes. And their trail poles were pretty shitty at times. I mean the one yes I admit I thought it was a camp site pole. They looked the same. So I walked past that turn. When I couldn't see anything. I looked at where the phone sort of said I was and the map. And just went the right direction. The second time there was definitely a missing pole. The last pole I saw said TH for Trailhead and pointed the direction I went. There was no other pole. I just followed dunes and my compass till I was back at the parking lot. I was maybe a 100 yards from the supposed trail I guess.

The next four pictures are from me standing at one of the markers and shooting all four directions,