When is peak fall foliage at White Sands National Park?

We don’t forecast fall color at White Sands National Park. Gypsum dunes and desert scrub. No deciduous canopy. Publishing a modeled date here would be a category error rather than an uncertain forecast.

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National Park·New Mexico·148,226 acres

White Sands National Park

Forecast issued Nov 10, 7:57am ET

We don’t forecast fall color here. Gypsum dunes and desert scrub. No deciduous canopy. Our model reads latitude and elevation and will happily produce a date for anywhere; publishing one here would be a category error rather than an uncertain forecast, so we don’t.

Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecast

Around White Sands National Park The park is outlined. The counties around it are painted by how far along their color is today, Nov 10.

Today from the jerbajada camera, 36 km from White Sands National Park — See it now PhenoCam Network, Jornada Experimental Range camera, 36 km away, captured Nov 9.

That’s 4 days later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.

The place

Two hundred and seventy-five square miles of gypsum sand so white it hurts to look at without sunglasses. White Sands is the largest gypsum dunefield on earth, rolling across the Tularosa Basin in waves that move, reshape, and bury everything slow enough to get caught. At sunset the dunes shift from white to gold to pink, and you can sled down them on a waxed plastic disc like a kid who wandered into another planet.

Established 2019. About 702,000/year visitors.

Plan this trip

If you can only come on certain days

Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.

ArrivingLeaving

Sunday, November 1 to Monday, November 2

You’ll find it peak color.

That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.

What turns: bigtooth maple, velvet ash, Fremont cottonwood, willow, Arizona walnut
Entrance: $25

What turns, and when

bigtooth maple17%
velvet ash17%
Fremont cottonwood17%
willow17%
Arizona walnut8%
chinkapin oak8%

Also named across New Mexico, outside what the canopy read measures here: Quaking Aspen, Narrowleaf Cottonwood, Gambel Oak, Rocky Mountain Maple.

Aspens turn gold in the Sangre de Cristo and Jemez mountains, Gambel oaks go russet and orange at lower elevations, and cottonwoods line the Rio Grande bosque in butter yellow.

Across New Mexico as a whole: Late September at 10,000 feet, early-to-mid October at lower elevations.

Questions people ask about White Sands National Park

When is peak fall foliage at White Sands National Park?: We don’t forecast fall color at White Sands National Park. Gypsum dunes and desert scrub. No deciduous canopy. Publishing a modeled date here would be a category error rather than an uncertain forecast.
Is there an entrance fee at White Sands National Park?: Entrance fee $25.

This forecast is built from the species that stand here, their elevation and this September’s weather, and corrected in season by cameras, foresters and our own crew. Out here we score it against NASA's satellite record of when the canopy shuts down, read inside each unit’s own boundary: two dates in three land within 12 days of it. How this map is made

All of New Mexico

Nearby, and when they turn

Lincoln is on the map above, with its own date.

Guadalupe Mountains National ParkNM, TX · about 103 miles
Peak Oct 31 best Oct 30 to Nov 2
Carlsbad Caverns National ParkNM · about 112 miles
Peak Nov 2 best Nov 1 to 4
Gila National ForestNM · about 122 miles
Peak Oct 24 best Oct 23 to 26
Cibola National ForestNM · about 136 miles
Peak Oct 21 best Oct 20 to 23
Sandia Mountain WildernessNM · about 166 miles
Peak Oct 28 best Oct 27 to 30