White Sands National Park, which received its designation as a national park in December 2019, saw a record 782,469 visitors in 2021.

White Sands National Park, which received its designation as a national park in December 2019, saw a record 782,469 visitors in 2021.

A new designation has apparently made a big difference for one of New Mexico’s most distinctive outdoor attractions.

White Sands National Park, which was upgraded from a national monument in December 2019, saw a record number of visitors in 2021. The park received 782,469 visitors last year, according to figures released by the National Park Service last week.

That was well up from 2020’s visitation, when 415,383 people made the trip to see the park’s remarkable white gypsum sand dunes in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.

The 2021 figure shattered White Sands’ attendance record of 666,879 set in 1986.

White Sands ranked 31st in attendance out of the country’s 63 national parks. Great Smoky Mountains National Park took top honors with a record 14,161,548 visitors. Zion was a distant second with 5,039,835.

Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico’s other national park, recorded 349,244 visitors in 2021. That was nearly twice as many as in 2020, though nowhere near the park’s record of 876,500 visitors set in 1976.

Petroglyph National Monument near Albuquerque was the most visited of New Mexico’s national monuments in 2021, with 364,211 visitors. It ranked 12th in attendance out of the 72 national monuments managed by the National Park Service. Castle Clinton and the Statue of Liberty, both in New York, were the two most visited national monuments, each with more than 1.5 million visitors.

Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos had a big uptick in traffic in 2021 with 270,716 visitors. That was nearly three times the visitation of 2020 and its highest figure since 2003. Bandelier’s record visitation was set in 1994 at 430,138.

Valles Caldera National Preserve reported 76,578 visitors in 2021, up from 30,434 in 2020.

In January, Los Alamos hiker Coco Rae published Hiking Trails in Valles Caldera National Preserve, the first comprehensive guide to the 20-year-old preserve's trail system. The book details over 25 trails and includes topographical maps, trail conditions and recommendations for mountain bike…

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