Interdune Boardwalk
Easy
0.4 miflat~20 min
A fully accessible elevated boardwalk with interpretive signs, no sand contact required. No permit.
White Sands · Mile 01 · The Story
The world's largest
gypsum dune field.
Most sand is quartz. The dunes here are almost pure gypsum, an unusual mineral that rarely survives long enough to form dunes anywhere else on Earth because it dissolves so easily in water. In this closed desert basin, gypsum washed down from the surrounding mountains has nowhere to drain, so it has been accumulating and drying into brilliant white sand for roughly seven thousand years, forming the largest gypsum dune field on the planet.
The park sits entirely within White Sands Missile Range, an active Department of Defense testing site, and Dunes Drive itself can close for up to three hours during scheduled tests, a genuinely unusual constraint for a national park. It became the country's newest full national park only in 2019, upgraded from a national monument status it had held since 1933.
Come for the surreal, snow-white landscape. Stay for a sled ride down a dune that's actually made of gypsum, not sand you'd find at any beach. Read the story, check for range closures before you go, and when you leave, collect the stamp.
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