Day 31 - White Sands

Pristine white sand dunes with brooding moutains surrounding in all directions, White Sands is a photographers dream. Arriving to the park at 430pm I watched the visitor center video and drove out to the dunes for very short hikes I search of the perfect vantage point for sunset.

A eight mile road goes into the heart of the dunes and halfway in turns from pavement to white sand surface. There is one longish hike at the end of the road, in the most white perfect sand section of the park, so I ended up there by 6pm. I packed my day bag with water and food, brought my camera and tripod, and hiking sticks and set out. I hiked until 7pm following stakes in the sand and then turned around so not to get lost in the dark. I got back to my car just as the sunset was starting to glow. Five other people were there, snapping away at the pure perfection of the White Sands sunset. One of the Chinese guys had taken pics of me hiking out and hiking in and must have taken 500 shots in ten minutes.

Having done my best to capture the white sand beauty and feeling alert, I decided to drive on two and a half more hours towards Albequerque so I could resupply at Costco and get an oil change done early the next day. I pulled into a Walmart parking lot at 1130pm, put up my blackout windows and crashed after a big day.

Here are my white sands pics.

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Day 161 - JMT Purple Lake and Tully Hole

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