Hyperlapse Tool Takes Google Street View To A Whole New Level

by Adam Hodge on

Google Street View was a boon to desk- and couch-bound wanderers when it debuted back in 2007, but even the most fervent Street View explorers would agree that the endless clicking is a bit of a chore.

Enter a free online tool that uses Street View images to create a personalized animated road trip. The Hyperlapse tool, created by a Toronto design company, lets you choose any two drivable points on the map, and then stitches together the Google Street View images to create an animation that you can pan around in real time.

The above video demonstrates the hyperlapse tool’s remarkable capabilities. The montage includes drives past major American landmarks and through other countries like Denmark Slovakia, Canada and Australia.

The online interface currently only provides basic point-to-point animation with a locked frame rate, so a two-hour drive like the one I animated from Montreal to Ottawa will take but a couple seconds. However, the featured hyperlapses, which show custom-made drives through the places like the Australian outback and Yosemite National Park are well worth a look. No word yet on when we will be able to animate trips to Street View’s more unique destinations, like up Everest or down the Amazon.

Sherpa Is First Fatality Of The Season On Everest

by Kraig Becker on

The spring climbing season on Mt. Everest is barely a week old and the mountain has already claimed its first death of the year. On Sunday, 45-year-old Mingmar Sherpa took a fatal fall into a crevasse while descending from Camp 2 on the mountain’s South Side. His companions attempted to mount a rescue operation but it took several hours to retrieve his body from the crevasse, at which time it was already too late.

Mingmar was a member of the famed Everest Icefall Doctors, a highly trained group of Sherpas whose job it is to build and maintain a safe route through the Khumbu Icefall each year. The group places ladders across open crevasses and fixes ropes through this dangerous section, allowing the climbers that come after them to pass through quickly and safely. That route had just been completed on Saturday and the Icefall Docs were helping to shuttle gear up the slope to two of the higher camps when the accident occurred.

Last spring was a particularly deadly season on the world’s tallest mountain where ten people lost their lives in pursuit of the summit. Unusually warm and dry conditions helped to make the mountain unstable, causing rocks to tumble down its slopes and forcing climbers to scramble across bare rock rather than the more preferred snow and ice. The 2013 season doesn’t appear to be a repeat of those conditions, however, as it has been a long, cold winter – with plenty of snow – in the Himalaya this year. As a result, the entire mountain is more stable, which should translate to fewer hazards and fatalities in the weeks ahead.

The mountaineering teams are just now arriving in Base Camp and will begin heading up the mountain in the next few days. Most will spend several weeks acclimatizing to the altitude while honing their skills and watching the skies for a weather window that will allow them to make a summit bid. Traditionally, the first summit attempts from the commercial climbing teams begin around mid-May.

Hopefully this early-season death isn’t a sign of things to come this year.

[Photo Credit: Kraig Becker]

80-Year-Old Sets Sights On Everest Summit

by Kraig Becker on

Eighty-year-old Japanese skier and mountaineer Yuichiro Miura has announced his intentions to attempt a summit of Mt. Everest this spring, returning to a mountain that made him famous back in 1970. If successful, Miura would become the oldest person to ever climb the mountain and the first octogenarian to do so.

This won’t be Miura’s first visit to the world’s tallest mountain. He first climbed it back in 1970, stopping short of the summit because he had another goal in mind. As an accomplished high alpine skier, Miura had traveled to the Himalayan peak in an attempt to become the first person to ski down its slopes – something that had previously been unthinkable. But the Japanese man, who was 37 at the time, achieved his goal and inspired the Oscar-winning documentary “The Man Who Skied Down Everest.”

After completing his quest to ski the Seven Summits – the tallest peaks on each of the seven continents – in 1985, Miura then chose to lead a quieter life for some time. But as he grew older, the Himalaya called to him once more and in 2003 he declared that he would return to Everest, this time to climb all the way to the summit. He was 70 years old at the time and when he was successful in his attempt, he became the oldest person to accomplish that feat. He would return five years later to scale the mountain again at the age of 75 and staying on his five-year schedule he is returning this year as well.

At the summit of the 29,029-foot mountain, the air is so thin that it’s roughly one-third of what you find at sea level. That’s enough to make climbers half Miura’s age gasp for air while their legs scream out in exhaustion. The 80-year-old says that he’ll need to regain the strength and energy of a much younger man if he hopes to be successful. He describes his quest for a third summit of the mountain as the “best anti-aging” activity that he knows.

The spring climbing season on Everest begins in early April and will run into June. We’ll know then if it is possible for a man who has passed his 80th birthday to climb such a daunting peak.

[Photo Credit: KYODO]

Trek To Everest Base Camp To Celebrate The 60th Anniversary Of The First Summit

by Kraig Becker on

On May 29, 1953, Edmund Hilliary and Tenzing Norgay became the first men to summit Mt. Everest, the world’s tallest peak. Their daring and historic climb ended a decades-long quest to conquer the 29,029-foot mountain and by accomplishing that task, the two men became instant celebrities across the globe. To celebrate that amazing feat, adventure travel company Ace the Himalaya is organizing a 60th anniversary Everest Base Camp Trek that will allow guests to walk in the footsteps of the two legendary climbers and leave a lasting impact on the mountain at the same time.

The 18-day itinerary starts on May 19 when travelers first begin arriving in Kathmandu. They’ll spend the following week trekking through the beautiful Khumbu Valley, passing snowcapped peaks and tiny villages before eventually arriving in Everest Base Camp on May 28 – exactly one day before the 60th anniversary of Hilliary and Norgay’s climb. After camping overnight in BC, the trekkers will spend May 29 contributing to the environmental cleanup in and around Base Camp by collecting trash that has accumulated there. They’ll then wrap up the day with a special celebratory dinner prepared to honor 60 years of climbing on the world’s most iconic peak. The final days of the trek will be spent descending back down the Khumbu Valley and returning to Kathmandu. The itinerary ends on June 5 when the travelers depart for home. Click here for a detailed look at the full schedule.

An Everest Base Camp trek is one of the best adventure travel experiences that active travelers could ask for. The Himalaya are simply breathtaking and the hearty people that live in the mountains are friendly and accommodating. Making the trek to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of the mountain would make for an unforgettable journey. But if you’re looking for the complete Everest experience, Ace the Himalaya also offers a full climbing expedition that will take you all the way to the summit. That one takes adventure to an entirely new level.

[Photo Credit: Kraig Becker]

Exploring The World’s Largest Cave (VIDEO)

by Libby Zay on

In the video above, veteran photographer and National Geographic award winner Carsten Peter talks about exploring and photographing Vietnam‘s underworld inside the Sơn Đoòng cave, which is inside the country’s Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park, close to the Laos border.

The cave was discovered in 1991 by a local man named Hồ-Khanh, but locals were afraid of the cave because of a whistling sound a large, fast-flowing subterranean river made. According to Yahoo.com, it wasn’t until 2009 that a group of scientists from the British Cave Research Association conducted a survey of the cave, finding it is five times larger than the Phong Nha cave, which was previously thought to be the largest in Vietnam. Sơn Đoòng also beat Malaysia’s Deer Cave for the title of the world’s largest cave. Some news outlets have reported that in spots, the cave is large enough to hold a skyscraper. Amazingly, the explorers have just scratched the surface, and still don’t know all that lies in the cave’s depths.

Peter, who returned to the cave with husband-and-wife team Howard and Deb Limpert, who conducted the first expedition, captured many incredible images in depths of the cave and surrounding area. In his talk, Peter quotes Howard Limbert, who said, “to find a giant cave like [Sơn Đoòng] in Vietnam is [like finding] a previously unknown Mount Everest.” See it for yourself in the video above and on the National Geographic website.