Camel Rock

If only every tourist boulder, formation, or outcropping was as visitor-friendly as Camel Rock. Many are at the end of some wilderness trail; Camel Rock is right off a highway exit ramp. It merits its own parking area and walking path. And Camel Rock visually evokes a hump-back desert animal, resting on its legs at the end of a long hot day in New Mexico’s Espanola badlands.

Camel Rock is a big chunk of weathered, pinkish-tan sandstone, about 40 feet high and 100 feet long. Historical markers by the road describe the nearby Tesuque Pueblo, known for figurative pottery, but make no mention of Camel Rock.