Google has quite literally reached new heights with its Street View service, gathering imagery from some of the world’s highest mountains.
Besides gathering imagery from Mount Everest Base Camp, the Google expedition team also traveled to Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Elbrus in Europe, and South America’s highest mountain, Mount Aconcagua.
In fact, the panorama captured at the summit of the 22,800-foot (6,962 meters) mountain in Argentina is now the highest point for which Street View imagery is available. However, sadly for the Google expedition team, the peak appears to have been enveloped in clouds when they arrived there, dashing hopes of being able to treat Street View users to more spectacular scenery.
Instead, Google adventurer Dan Fredinburg suggests you check out photos taken of Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro, the dormant volcano known as the Roof of Africa. “See amazing views of the highest freestanding mountain in the world covered in snow just three degrees south of the equator,” Fredinburg wrote in a Google blog post.
To capture the 360-degree panoramas, the Street View understandably left its camera-laden cars in the Mountain View garage, opting instead to use “a simple lightweight tripod and digital camera with a fisheye lens”, with the photographs stitched together later.
Announcing the new data in a post on Google’s Lat-Long blog, expedition team member Sara Pelosi said she felt “honored to share this amazing imagery….and show the world what life is like from its highest peaks.”
Google has taken its Street View project off-road more and more in recent years as it endeavors to capture imagery for places most of us will never have a chance to visit. Armchair travelers can now enjoy virtual vacations to Antarctica, the Amazon River and Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, among many other locations.
