Google's Street View maps are headed into the backcountry. Earlier this week, two teams from Google strapped on sophisticated backpacks jammed with cameras, gyroscopes and other gadgets, and descended to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. But this is just the first step in the search giant's plan to digitally map and photograph the world's wild places.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/10/24/163499448/googles-street-view-goes-into-the-wild

Edited by csteutterman on 10/24/2012 10:06:12 MDT.

The GC will always be there but some of the world's other wild places may soon not be (the Amazon basin, trails being replaced by roads in the Himalayan foothills, etc..). They may get more web traffic if they capture some soon to be extinct places and cultures ... vs places that can be visited by foot, mule, car, or ... helicopter from Vegas.

Windshield tourist? So 20th century.

Meet phone tourist!


Hook your laptop up to your high def TV and 'walk' the AT, Grand Canyon and Everest without leaving the comfort of your room.

The geek in me thinks is kinda cool on some level.

The outdoors person in me wonders what the SAR folks think. :O

"The outdoors person in me wonders what the SAR folks think. :O"

They just wonder whether or not they'll have to knock first before rescuing someone from their couch.....

I hope they fail.
Seeing new places for the first time is part of the pleasure of hiking.
What a nightmare it would be if you could preview your 2 weeks vacation route.

re: Rescuing someome from the couch

Being serious, I suspect many people will take their iPhone, a bottle of water, some jerky and call it good.

THAT'S what I wonder about in terms of SAR...

The very act of getting lost is no longer private. I can see it now, you think your lost. You fire up the GPS, and an AD pops up, pizza delivery right to your location in 20 minutes or it's free. Soon we'll have to hike on Mars to be able to get lost - unless google gets there first.

Edited by joeb on 10/24/2012 13:51:25 MDT.

I think it's a cool idea. The way I see it, no one is going to hold you down and make you look at it if you don't want to. I see times where it would be a handy thing. There are times when I'm planning group trips (with Meetup) and with the add'l responsibility of planning for a group of people of varying skills and abilities there are times where I (or they) would like to look at a trail on there to assess if it's a good fit for the group or for a certain individual. It would save me an advance scouting trip which is what I generally feel like doing if I'm unsure.

On the other side of things- would that not be one of the coolest jobs? Get paid to hike. Gotta dig it.

Dude, as much as I do not like the idea of everything being documented everywhere, all the time, it would be an incredible job!! how many miles of hiking trails are there in the US???

You could "hike" all day on your television, then sight up your tent and stove in your living room and sleep.

Whaaat! they stole my idea! I posted this sep 12!

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=68198&skip_to_post=582531#582531