Posted on 02/05/2017 2:16:57 PM PST by nickcarraway
Camel Rock is a landmark along the interstate betwSanta Fe and Espanola. It's a pile of rocks that look like a camel sitting down. Locals love it, and tourists flock to it.
But Camel Rock now looks a little bit different. It's hard to tell from a distance but up close, it's easy notice a huge chunk of rock that created the camel’s mouth is now gone.
When compared side by side, it’s easy to see.
“I feel sad. I feel sad,” said Vincent Lopez, who lives nearby in Nambe. “It's Camel Rock. I mean, you could compare it to Bandelier. You know the caves and all that. I mean they've been there forever.”
For Lopez, this has been a hangout spot since he was a kid. Before these fences were put into place he says he would climb the rocks with his friends and admire the natural beauty.
“Not only is Camel Rock historic, it’s symbolic. So it's a great loss,” Lopez said.
That's how he describes the look of the rock now after a big chunk broke off. For those who live around the landmark, many people say they haven't noticed much of a difference. But will the changes cause tourists traveling on US 84 to keep on moving instead of stopping to take pictures?
“It looks a little bit still like it but I guess you can tell before it was more noticeable,” said Krystal Mantei, a tourist that stopped at the Camel Rock Casino.
Not for these tourists from Texas.
“I believe people would still come out to see it. It still looks enough like a camel to me, from being a tourist myself,” Cody Mantei said.
KOB reached out to the Pueblo of Tesuque to see if anything could be done to fix or repair it, but has not heard back.
“After” is Harambe.
It looks like the head of Jar Jar Binks
It looks like just the camel’s head and neck in 3/4 profile in the first pic.
Second pic looks vaguely like the head of Heckle or Jeckle.
Too bad. When I was a kid we’d stop at the Stuckeys for a coke and sometimes we’d hike up to the rock.
Mother eart has a chubby
Daniel Webster once said:
“Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.”
I still mourn its passing. It was a special place in the Notch.
“It’s time Congress banned erosion, for our own good”
They actually have...or at least the EPAs interpretation of the 1973 Clean Water Act has banned it. I work in construction and every project includes a permitting process and measures that let us make believe we can stop erosion. If we let a permit slip...the EPA shows up with badges (like a sheriff’s badge) and shakes you down like the mafia. In my case: you can pay the $12k fine or fight the $120k fine...I blinked and my company paid the small one.
Anyway - erosion has been outlawed. Same with wind erosion - ask anyone who operates a quarry about that...and of course now farmers who till up dust are in their sights.
Nature happens.
Shouldn’t have been sitting under it...
Not surprising. Law makers don’t think they’ve done their job unless they pass some stupid ban, thinking they’re serving the public. Like butterfly knives because they “look scary”. Or using your own land because it “harms the environment”.
That’ll buff right out.
Global warming?
Fortunately the rubble self-identifies as an old man so it’s all good.
IIRC, that's what was proposed to "fix" NH's Old Man of the Mountain, after its collapse.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, rock to rubble..."
.
I guess you have to have special glasses to ‘see’ the camel...
.
.
They once even jailer a California farmer because his disk killed a kangaroo rat.
Insanity.
I had the same idea. It does look a bit like ET with his mouth open.
Having had the pleasure of seeing both camel rock and the old man in the mountain in their previous states, I’ll make sure to put their lore at the front end of the kind of legenary tale a crusty elder imparts to starry-eyed youth.
If Daniel Webster could see the northeast today, he would weep.
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