Use Google Earth (GE) for route planning

For those of you who have yet to discover it, GE is a phenomenal tool to visualize the terrain of your next outdoor adventure.  Squinting at contour lines and trying to imagine what the underlying land actually looks like is a skill that few master.  GE merges satellite images of the entire planet along with elevation models to give a view from any direction that is much more intuitive to our three-dimensional eyes and brains.  You can zoom, pan, spin in any compass direction, and view obliquely, not just a bird’s eye view.

GE is free, and takes just a few minutes to install.  It allows you to draw lines and shapes on your area of interest – very useful for drawing in a climbing route.  You can save images, and email them to friends.

GE also merges seamlessly with most newer GPS units.  This allows you to go on a hike or climb with your GPS recording the “track” of your hike.  When you get home, launch GE, connect your GPS to your computer, click “Import from GPS”, and your track is overlaid on the GE image - very cool.

A few pictures are worth more than anything we can say about it, so check these out:  The first is of Mt. Washington in the Oregon Cascades, and the second image is the stiff hike of Ruckle Ridge in the Columbia River Gorge, Oregon, overlaid with a red GPS track.