Jim McMahon/Mapman®

Believe it or not, this isn’t a photo of Antarctica—and that isn’t snow. These are sand dunes at White Sands National Park in southern New Mexico. White Sands became a U.S. national park just over a year ago. (It had been a national monument.) The park features part of the world’s largest gypsum dune field. Gypsum is a mineral that gives the landscape its white, snowy appearance. 

White Sands also contains more fossilized footprints from Ice Age humans and animals—including mammoths and giant sloths—than anywhere else in the world. In fact, experts recently announced that White Sands has the longest track of fossilized human footprints on Earth. The prints were likely made more than 10,000 years ago by a woman or teen walking with a toddler—and show that a sloth and a mammoth crossed their path. 

Researchers say they have also found evidence that Ice Age children once played in what is now the park—for example, jumping between mammoth tracks!