Of Mountains and Maps

We took a break from the bikes on Saturday and did a classic mountaineering route in the Longs Peak/Mt Meeker cirque. We’ve been to this particular part of Rocky Mountain National Park several times. We know the hike from the Longs Peak Ranger Station to Chasm Lake by heart. Over the years we’ve ticked off a few different routes, each one memorable for its own reason. On Saturday we completed the Dreamweaver route on the northeast aspect of Mt Meeker.




The image above provides a good view of Mt Meeker and its neighbor to the north, Longs Peak. The process in which I found this perspective was quite interesting and rather efficient. It’s crazy how much geographic information is available on the internet. I began by typing “mountain ranges of the world” into the Google search engine. The results took me to the following link on the Peakware website: http://www.peakware.com/areas.html. From there I found the “Front Range” under "North America". By following the link I was able to see an overview satellite image of the area and see a listing of the peaks that comprise the Front Range. Each mountain in the list was linked to a page containing vital geographic information about the peak as well as photos. My curiosity then led me to download GoogleEarth so that I could view the mountains in 3D. GoogleEarth has become a popular tool in recent times. It has added a whole new dimension to interpreting information from a spatial perspective.

More info on mountains throughout the world and their significance:

http://www.mountain.org/education/subexplore/explore01.cfm

View the photos of our climb:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bicyclegeography/sets/72157600275015082/