I crested the San Andreas mountains at lunchtime. The San Andreas are the range of black mountains that separate Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences from valleys to the east. The Tularosa Basin was before me, home of White Sands National Monument. I have wanted to visit the dunes for years, but for some reason or other, and despite several efforts, the closest I had made it until this day was Albuquerque. I had first seen the dunes, rare gypsum sand worn from the hills to the southwest, in a yoga video I acquired while stationed in Korea. I’m not sure whether it was the yoga, or being able to spend an hour ‘in the States’ while I did the poses, or the sheer beauty of the photography, but the dunes always seemed like a refuge to me. It was not until I was driving up the west side of the range, out of Las Cruces and towards the monument, that I realized the monument was adjacent to White Sands Missile Range, one of the most physically violent places on earth.
The valley is huge, hundreds of square miles of dry lakebed. It is quite beautiful, the desert rock of the mountains still open to the elements, the lower elevations covered with thin patches of dried grass and low desert chaparral. I was immediately taken (and this was completely unexpected) by the weight of this place, or, more specifically, our human actions towards it. It is a remote area, and desolate, and for these reasons has been designated expendable. The earth here is regularly shattered (and the animals and plants assailed) by the force of missile tests and impacts. Trinity, the site of the world’s first atomic weapons test, is northwest of the monument, the scar still visible on satellite photos. And we, as a nation, have decided this is ‘OK’. I pondered these thoughts as I continued towards the park.
I could not initially see the dunes from the highway, but as I drove they began to shimmer along the horizon to the north. Once you reach them, they are beautiful. The sand is white, and softer than beach sand, and unexpectedly bright. As you go deeper in to the park, the grasses and yucca gave way to open dunes. For some reason they are popular for sledding, with the sand marked with footprints and long impressions near most of the parking turn-outs. I found a shady spot (to help out my faithful houseplants) checked the map and headed out for a hike. For such a remote area it was surprisingly busy. There were close to twenty cars in the lot, and on trail I would meet another group every few minutes. One couple wore an unusual tee shirt and we stopped to talk. They were in the area for the Battan Memorial Death March, held two days before. Two thousand of the soldiers sent to the Philippine theatre were from the New Mexico National Guard. Following months of intense battle, they were part of the contingent surrendered to Japan. These Prisoners of War were then forced to march to their confinement camps, 65 long miles with little food or water. Nine hundred New Mexico Guardsmen survived until release, but close to half died within a year of returning home: to vehicle accidents, alcoholism or ‘unexplained circumstances (most likely suicide). The Memorial March had been held two days earlier, twenty six miles in the high desert of the test range. This year eleven of the twenty still alive were able to participate in the memorial.
This may be the time to speak of the orb in the sky. Rumor is that it is still ‘not working’ in the northeast, at least the radiating warmth part. Let me tell you, it was ‘working’ this day. It was hot, and there was nothing between me and the sun but blue sky. But it was a nice sort of hot, dry, in the way that you and your clothes don’t get sticky. I took off my shoes and the sand was warm on my feet, very easy to walk in, cool just under the surface. I expected the trail to wind along the semi-hard beds between the dunes (the name was ‘the Alkali Flats Trail’) but it meandered up and down and around the dunes. Three weeks driving had taken it’s toll, after a short while I was huffing and puffing. Aware of the altitude, and my thirst, and my friends waiting in the car (still recovering from mild frostbite at Arlington) I turned back early. It was a nice visit, thought not anything like I had expected.
I arrived in Santa Fe on Wednesday. I will be spending five weeks here, at a Zen Center nestled in a canyon on the east side of town. For the past four weeks I had been living out of four bags, so it was nice to settle and start to unpack the Xterra. My room is in the main house, a former dining room off the kitchen that opens onto a gorgeous courtyard. It is a Pueblo style home, low adobe with rounded corners, accented with corner fireplaces and large wooden beams. Inside it is natural wood cupboards and furniture, primarily in the raw, lightly finished Ranchero style, with Buddhist artwork. It is above seven thousand feet here, spring still creeping up from the valley below, so the earth was still brown, and most plants dormant waiting for warmer temps. The exception (other than the pine) was the cherry trees, bright with branches of pale pink flowers. They provide a pleasant contrast to the earth tones of the buildings of the land.
blackened tree trunks and charred fenceposts evidence of an earlier fire, I turned the corner to a valley blanketed with white and amber flowers. I stopped at a turnout (there were many, I was clearly not the first) and began to snap photos. As I walked along the barbed wire fence I suddenly realized why I look down on trail: I caught myself checking the ground under my girly shoes for rattlesnakes before each step.
The cafe is closed now, and the small motel across the street is now private lodging for men working at the nearby solar farms. The gas station was closed too, at least the pumps, with the gravel lot filled with vintage muscle cars in various stages of reconstruction. The rancher’s hanger was gone, but the runway is still there, now clumpy green grass with a well-maintained windsock (photo). Next door is a new Cal Fire station, with a bay housing two engines attached to offices and living quarters. On the other end of a well-tended picnic area was the new Community Center (new since I had been there in the late 80s) consisting of a meeting hall and a one-room library. I went inside and got to talking with the librarian. She had been the waitress at the cafe and remembered us well.