Rafter Mysteriously Goes Missing In Grand Canyon

by Kraig Becker on

The National Park Service has a mystery on their hands and it is proving to be a difficult one to solve.

Twenty-one-year-old Kaitlin Kenney was part of a month-long private rafting party in the Grand Canyon when she mysteriously went missing last week. Kenney was last seen on Friday, January 11, in a camp near Tapeats Creek along the northern bank of the Colorado River. What happened to her after that is still open for speculation, as no trace of the young woman has been found since.

Other members of the rafting group used a satellite phone to contact the Park Service over the weekend and the NPS scrambled search parties to go looking for Kenney. Searching from both the air and on the ground, teams have combed the area where she was last seen and so far have come up empty. The Park Service says that they spent two days checking every accessible trail, beach, drainage and backcountry area in the vicinity to no avail. The search is ongoing, although efforts have been scaled back.

What might have happened to the missing rafter is open to debate. Other members of her party say that she would never have tried to climb out of the canyon on her own and speculation is that she may have accidentally fallen into the water sometime in the night. At this time of year the Grand Canyon can be a cold place and the waters of the Colorado are frigid, making hypothermia a real danger. SAR teams have combed the river looking for Kenney, however, and still haven’t found any clues.

[Photo Credit: National Park Service]

The Grand Canyon Is Coming To Google Street View

by Kraig Becker on

By now we’ve all marveled at how Google Maps and its Street View option, allow us to easily explore the world around us. Not only is it possible to use the system to find a new restaurant down the street, but it also gives us the ability to visit places like the Amazon, Pompeii and the Great Barrier Reef without ever leaving home. Soon you’ll be able to add yet another natural wonder to that list, as the Internet search giant has announced that it will next turn its attention on the Grand Canyon.

Yesterday, Google announced that it was sending members of its mapping team, armed with its new Trekker camera system, into the canyon for the first time. They’ll explore the iconic and breathtaking landscape on foot, while the camera automatically captures high quality photos in 360-degree panoramas while they hike. Once the expedition is complete, the team will return home and upload their images, which will eventually be stitched together and displayed in Street View form online.

This week the maps team is concentrating on the stunning vistas of the South Rim as well as the popular Bright Angel Trail and South Kaibab Trail. If you happen to be in Grand Canyon National Park over the next few days and come across a group of hikers with oddly shaped backpacks, it’s probably just the Google gang going about their business. The rest of us will have to wait patiently for their photos to be added to the ever-growing Street View library.

On a side note, how cool would it be to get payed by Google to go backpacking for a few weeks? I’m sure this team is well outfitted for this adventure and it certainly beats spending long days in the office.

[Photo credit: Google]

The Grand Canyon Captured In Time-lapse

by Kraig Becker on

There is no doubt that the Grand Canyon is one of the most beautiful and dramatic landscapes on Earth, drawing in millions of visitors each year. But seldom has it been captured so spectacularly as it has in this time-lapse video. To create this short film, the photographers spent seven weeks in and around the canyon, shooting over 80,000 photos in the process. The results are hard to dispute. This is simply one of the best time-lapse videos I’ve ever seen.


“Grand Canyon : Blink of Time” from GOTM Films on Vimeo.

Video: Exploring The Grand Canyon

by Kraig Becker on

The Grand Canyon is truly epic in scale. Not only does it stretch for more than 277 miles in length it is also as much at 18 miles wide at certain points and plummets to over a mile in depth as well. It is indeed one of the true natural wonders of our planet and attracts millions of visitors on an annual basis.

But what many of those visitors don’t know is that there are a series of smaller canyons that twist and wind their way across the region. Most of those side canyons have never been explored and even in the 21st century they remain mostly unmapped and unseen by man. Recently a group of explorers dropped into those twisty, narrow passages and filmed their adventure. The full documentary of their expedition will debut at the 5Point Film Festival in a few weeks time but the trailer for the film, entitled “Last of the Great Unknown,” can be viewed below. It gives us a glimpse into this amazing place and what these modern day explorers had to go through to plumb its depths.


Last of the Great Unknown – Trailer #1 from Dan Ransom on Vimeo.

Nature Valley Trail View is ‘street view’ for national parks

by Kraig Becker on

Earlier this week, Nature Valley launched a fun new website that delivers a Google Street View-like experience for hiking trails in some of America’s most popular and iconic national parks. Dubbed Nature Valley Trail View, the new site allows hikers to explore over 300 miles of trail directly from their browser.

Much like its counter-part from Google, Trail View actually puts us on the ground and gives us a 360-degree view of the surroundings as we take a virtual hike through the wilderness. It also offers information about the trail that is currently being displayed, including: its length, level of difficulty and important points of interest along the way. This makes it a great tool for scouting potential hikes in the national parks before we go while also providing insights into what to expect when we’re actually out on the hike.

At the moment, Trail View features three of the more popular and famous national parks – Grand Canyon, Great Smokey Mountains, and Yellowstone. The video below gives us a glimpse at the technology that has gone into creating the new website, which is just the latest initiative from Nature Valley, a company that has a long history of supporting the national parks in a variety of important ways.

Enjoy the video then go take a virtual hike.