Riding in the Sand Dunes of White Sands National Monument

At the Northern end of the Tularosa Basin, some 90 miles North of El Paso, Texas sits the White Sands National Monument just a few miles West of Alamogordo, New Mexico.

White Sands National Monument is bordered to the West by the San Andres Mountains and to the East by the Sacramento Mountains and is ran by the National Park Service. Open to recreation, this park provides over 275 miles of white Gypsum sand dunes that are a great place to ride your horses.

A nominal costs of $3 per rider got six of us through the gate off of US Highway 70 that connects the towns of Las Cruces and Alamogordo, New Mexico. We proceeded a few miles to North to designated horse trailer sites, saddled up and rode into the brilliant white gypsum sand dunes.  Some type of polarized lens sun glasses are advisable riding here.

Most all horses can benefit from being ridden in diverse environments. From backing out the trailers into an all white world, to riding into deep sand - this was good for the horses but you had to be a little careful as the brightness of the sand would sometimes white out the drop offs - best to limit trotting or loping to the low, harder packed areas. These low areas collect what pitiful rainfall drops on White Sands but allows decent clumps of grass to grow and I also saw some type of sage growing in small bushes.

The cresting dunes allow a rider to challenge his or her horse going up or down hills and a rider could also work their way between the dunes to give their horse a break.  Great place to train horses to walk down hill, but in that deep side about every mile you rode was about two to the horse as they had to work pretty hard. Once we made our way back to the trailers and unsaddled, we let the horses have a roll in the gypsum sand.

As we were loading for the return trip George Stone trailered in with Matilda his famous camel. I didn't get a good enough photo, so I thought I'd share one of George's video riding Matilda at White Sands a couple years ago.  If you're traveling close to  White Sands Monument you won't be disappointed stopping in for a look even if you don't have your horses with you.  Who knows, maybe you run into George Stone and Matilda.