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The White Sands National Monument is located in the Tularosa Valley on U.S. Highway 70, fifteen miles southwest of Alamogordo, New Mexico. The dune field is composed of pure white gypsum sand that has been leached out of the nearby San Andreas Mountains, washed down into Lake Lucero by rain water, and then, after drying, blown by the wind into the dunes. The pure white sand covers 275 square miles, half of which is within the park boundaries and accessible. The rest is on military property and inaccessible. This is, after all, the place where the first atomic bomb was detonated in July 1945 and from time to time nearby roads are still closed due to test firing of military missiles.
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