Haynes Canyon Vista View of a White Gypsum Sandstorm
White gypsum is blown thousands of feet up in the sky during a gusty storm system blowing through on this October day. Haynes Canyon Vista, perched high up in the moist Sacramento Mountains near Cloudcroft, New Mexico was a chilly 30 degrees cooler than the base of the Tularosa Basin nearly four thousand feet below. A lush forest of Douglas Fir, Spruce, and Ponderosa Pine stretches far in the ridges below before yielding to savannah like grasslands and eventually the dry dusty desert floor. Area lit gold by the sun glistening off the gypsum is the White Sands National Monument that wouldn't have been an enjoyable place to visit on this day.
