Land of Enchantment
“WARNING: Highway 70 may be closed at any time for up to three hours during a Missile Test.” That road sign is the first indication that I am approaching White Sands National Monument, which is surrounded on three sides by White Sands Missile Range, the largest military installation in the United States. White Sands, which encompasses 8,300 sq. km. in southern New Mexico and is most infamous as the test site for the first atomic bomb, is a key location in the U.S. military’s defence plan.
After collecting my National Parks Passport stamp at the visitor’s centre, I follow the 12-km driving loop into the largest gypsum dune field in the world. It is almost noon and the whiteness is blinding. At the four-kilometre mark, the paved road reverts to sand and I stand up on the pegs of my 650 V-Strom. Dazzling sand drifts so much and so regularly that plows must be used to clear a path, leaving pristine roadside banks. Were the temperature not 35 C, I could believe I am riding right into a Canadian winter, especially when I happen upon a large group of children riding saucers down the dunes.
