Technology to find new sites.

[cesslon 0]

Curiosity has gotten the better of me...
Anyone here yet used internet search tools to find new sites.

I know people have talked to rock climbers/hikers and asked them about cliffs etc.

but you can also use tools like google images,
for example someone may go camping out in the middle of no where and take some pictures of nature, then come home and add the pics to there website, which google then stores in its image index.

then if you do a search for terms like "cliff valley name" a lot of the time you'll find pics, or even "cliff state" as that increases ya chances of finding cliffs in valleys and stuff you have never heard of etc.

has anyone actually used this method ?
also google earth eath.google.com is a cool tool, at present ya can only zoom in *closely* to cities and popular area's but within a year or 2 you'll be able to zoom into within a thousand feet of every place on earth.

Surely that would save time having to hike around the back country looking for possible new sites.

or will that just spoil the fun ?

[JaapSuter 0]

Hell yeah, and I bet I'm not the only one. I think I have tried all permutations of the keywords "British Columbia, Wall, Overhang, Steep, Sheer, Granite, etc.", and I actually got some good leads through that. Other websites like Bivouac, Summitpost and CascadeClimbers have helped me tremendously as well.

There are free online topos available for most areas, and if you use Photoshop to blend those with the sattelite imagery from say, Google maps, you can get some more useful information. I usually do a Worldwind and Keyhole flyby, but unfortunately that resolution is too small to be of any use.

I recently spend some time learning more about the world of Digital Elevation Models (DEM). This turned out to be a very scattered world of random data in a multitude of formats, resolutions and accessibility. The most impressive thing that Worldwind and Keyhole do is present this data in a simple way to laymen.

I finally managed to get a hold of an Aster DEM grid through the ackward EOS Data Gateway in the hope of calculating some surface derivatives and searching for high numbers and infinity. It's supposed to be up to 30 meters exact, which means that if you find a high derivate, there's bound to be a steep to vertical area.

Unfortunately the data was in a rather complicated and uncalibrated format. I had to put it through four filters and tools to get anything remotely representing an elevation image and even then the cloud-coverage errors caused a lot of holes in the data.

I'm pretty sure that somebody with more time on his hands could turn the free high resolution DEM data into something potentially useful. It would take a lot of time though, time I would rather spend hiking through the Great Outdoors doing some hands-on investigation on the leads I already have through other sources.

Cheers,

Jaap

[hondarider35 0]

might also try searching gorge and dam i use searches to find new hiking and fishing grounds and have run across some great out of the way places

[Faber 0]

i found out that when ever you see a thing that is like "tall" but perhaps not that tall,laser it or climb it you most time will be surpriced(unless you think the local burger sign is tall)

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[base736 0]

Taking this in another direction, A's need to be registered with the appropriate government authority. Information on the lot of 'em (including location and height) is therefore available over the internet if you know where to look...

Edit to add: for North America, anyway...