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Google mappers go everywhere: Street View images of the tallest mountains

Posted at 8:27 AM on March 19, 2013 by Jon Gordon (3 Comments)

Google has released Street View images of some of the most famous mountains on Earth.

Travel vicariously to Mt. Kilimanjaro:

View Larger Map

And Mt. Everest base camp:

View Larger Map

Roberto Baldwin has the story on Wired.com:

One lucky engineer, who happens to be a passionate mountaineer, led the Google Mountain Enthusiast team during a project that was strictly a labor of love for all involved.
"There's a social benefit to using these tools to tell the story in these environments. A chance to really connect to whats on the ground with a rich imagery so they can see what it looks like and feels like to be there," says Dan Fredinburg, who is a technical program manager for security and privacy when he isn't scaling summits ...

His passion for climbing almost got the better of him while climbing Everest. He really, really wanted to go all the way to the top, but the team arrived just before the summit window in October.

"It was only planned to go to the basecamp," says Fredinburg. "I did try to convince my guides to take me further up. I was very excited when I got to basecamp."

His enthusiasm led to an awkward conversation with the guides, who refused to take him any higher than base camp. He pressed the issue, and offered to pay them for their trouble. Still, they refused. It eventually dawned on him that perhaps it was too risky. So he asked about the odds of dying.

"Certain," came the response. "100 percent."

Comments (3)

Looks like Mohammed can stay home after all.

Posted by Robert Moffitt | March 19, 2013 9:10 AM

I think this is inaccurately described. Only one of the mountains featured (Everest) is among the "seven tallest mountains on Earth." All of the seven tallest are in the Hindu Kush or Karakoram ranges. What they seem to be featuring are some of the "seven summits," or the highest peaks on each continent. Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa, but it doesn't come close to being among the seven highest in the world.

Cool pics, though.

Posted by Cort | March 19, 2013 12:28 PM

The article itself explicitly refers to the Seven Summits.

Posted by KTFoley | March 19, 2013 2:54 PM