Arizona/New Mexico – Spring 2024

Southern New Mexico – White Sands National Park, Black Lava at the Valley of Fires Recreation Area, and Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

April 3-4, 2024

I left the wonderful City of Rocks campground early, on a bright sunny morning, and headed southeast, first on quiet and scenic highway 180, and then on a fast stretch of I-10 into the city of Las Cruces where I crossed over the Rio Grande! The Rio Grande originates in the southern Rocky Mountains and flows for over 1800 miles before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. It has been a source of water to peoples in the arid lands of New Mexico, Texas and Mexico for millennia, and has supported a rich diversity of plants and wildlife as well as human occupation, agriculture and settlement. Once a wild river with seasonal floods, the Rio Grande is now tamed by several dams to control and manage its flow. Here, in Las Cruces, the wide river flowed downstream beside a pleasant riverside park.

I spent a bit of time in downtown Las Cruces and then carried on to visit White Sands National Park to see its dazzling white dunes composed of pure gypsum crystals, the largest such dune field in the world.

The crystals originate from ancient lakebeds in the Tularosa Basin, and the wind blows them into ever-shifting patterns of dunes that cover roughly 275 square miles of Chihuahuan Desert. As I drove towards the park, I could see a leading edge of the dune field with stubborn plants trying to maintain a foothold on the shifting sands. I learned later that soaptree yucca plants in the dunes grow taller to keep new leaves above the sand. They can have as much as thirty feet of growth below the surface of the dune as they strive to survive.

I visited the excellent (and very busy) Visitors Centre, and then I began the somewhat other-worldly eight mile drive into the dunes.

I walked the two short nature trails, learning about the plants and animals that are adapated to live here. The adaptations were grouped under these headings: grow fast (sand verbena), change colour (bleached earless lizard and Apache pocket mouse), go out at night (kit fox), grow tall (yucca), and hold on (skunkbush sumac). My adaptations were sunglasses, a hat, sunscreen, and water as I chose one parking area near the end of the drive and set off to climb up into the dunes. It was very beautiful!

Between the dunes were shallow areas where moisture can accumulate and plants put down roots, at least for a time.

I walked up and down many dunes, some quite steep, until my parking area was lost to sight. On my return journey I worried for just a moment, thinking that I could possibly be lost, but my sense of direction was true and the parking area came into sight just a few minutes later.

Part of me wanted to say longer in this brilliant and somewhat hypnotic white expanse,

but it was time to move on. I had reached the southeastern extent of my travels on this road trip. Now, it was time to start heading back north and west towards, eventually, home!

Back on the road, I drove towards Alamogordo and watched as fighter jets from the nearby Holloman Airforce Base whizzed across the sky at incredible speeds. I left that city behind and headed north on quiet highway 54, with the tall snow-covered peaks of the Sacramento Mountains to my right, and the flat expanse of the Tularosa Basin to my left, edged in the distance by the San Andres and Oscura Mountains. As I neared the small town of Carrizozo, I began to see a darkness on the landscape. It was the Malpais/Carrizozo Lava Flow, created some 5000 years ago when Little Black Black Peak began a series of eruptions that sent lava flowing south down the Tularosa Basin for 44 miles. The resulting lava flow of is between 4 and 6 miles wide, and up to 160 feet thick in places.

The Valley of Fires Recreation Area protects this unique landscape and its plants and animals, and it also offers a great campsite which was unfortunately full when I arrived in the late afternoon. But, one kind couple occupying an extra-large site on top of a hill offered to let me share their space which was very kind of them. Relieved to be settled, I had time to walk the excellent one mile paved nature trail that described the lava flow, as well as the plants and animals that are making this unique place their home.

After my walk, there was time for dinner, a chat with the elderly couple, and then a session of sitting on my camp chair, with this view, while the sun lowered in the sky.

I wanted to stay out for another evening session of star-watching, but my near-constant companion, the wind, decided to turn chilly and sharp so I retreated to the protection of my Toyota and the delights of a good book.

The next morning I was off again early, loving the emptiness of Highway 380 and the blueness of the sky as I travelled due west towards the Rio Grande Valley and the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge.

The Bosque del Apache Refuge protects almost 60,000 acres of desert, wetland, and bosque which is a forest habitat, often of cottonwoods, that is found along rivers, streams, and floodplains. It is an important refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds including song birds, raptors, waterfowl, and shore birds, and it is famous for its very large numbers of overwintering sandhill cranes and snow geese.

As I exited my car at the Visitor’s Centre, I heard, “Hello! Christine!” And there was Klaus, a German traveller that I had met on that snowy morning at Chiricahua. He had already spent the previous day birding at the bosque, and he was excited to show me where to see vermillion fly catchers in a stand of tall cottonwoods near one of the viewing decks in the refuge. That’s Klaus below, in silhouette, and we did indeed spot several of the beautiful and striking red birds, perched in the tree tops and in flight catching insects. It was very exciting to see them!

Klaus was heading to one of the north ponds where he had seen ibis, snowy egrets, and avocets the previous day while I went off to walk several trails in the southern half of the Refuge’s 14 mile loop drive. I loved the boardwalk nature trail with its charming signage done in the style of a naturalist’s diary, and though the reeds were brown and the cottonwoods were gray and leafless, it was still very beautiful, and there were little sparks of green to be found.

After my walks, I drove to rejoin Klaus who was set up on his camp chair at one of the north ponds where there was an exciting variety of species of birds all in one area. I set up my chair as well, pulled out my binoculars, and saw beautiful snowy egrets, and elegant stilts, avocets and ibis. Wonderful! There were also shovelers, dowitchers and other shore birds, and a killdeer which flew by noisily with its distinctive call. At one point, a harrier hawk flew low over the pond and set all of the birds aflight, but they soon resettled so that we could continue to watch as they fed, each in their own particular way, in the shallow waters of the pond. Sadly, I didn’t have my zoom lens with me for close up photos of the egrets, stilts, and avocets,

but Klaus kindly sent me several photos that he had taken, including this gorgeous photo of a white-faced ibis,

and this one of a snowy egret.

We sat for a long time watching the birds and chatting and then we visited the lovely small botanical garden and arboretum. Handsome red-winged blackbird bachelors ate at feeders and drank at a fountain while Gambel’s quail scurried from one hiding place to another.

Then, Klaus and I chatted some more in the Visitor’s Centre, about travel and famous adventurers, books and birds. By late afternoon it was time for Klaus to continue on his travels east to Texas, en route to view the solar eclipse, and I settled in at the nearby, rather uninspiring but safe and peaceful Birdwatcher’s RV Park (the closest campsite to the Bosque), to make a simple dinner and go to bed early. I felt ready for sleep by about 6 p.m.! A product, I think, of several weeks of non-stop travel, and of all the sun the day before at White Sands, and on this day sitting by the ponds. Before closing myself in to my Toyota though, I ended my day with the lucky sighting of a roadrunner, truly a symbol of the Southwest.