[pct-l] Google Earth (good for planning)

[taurodea at gmail.com (Stephanie)]

Has anyone checked out this little program? 

http://earth.google.com

It's essentially a 3D map of the world with technical info like where
many of the gas stations, motels, restaurants, schools, pharmacies,
etc. are. I don't think it has *everything*, but it does have a lot.

I imagine it'll be helpful to anyone researching the trail. You can
actually tilt the map to get an edge-on look and see actual mountains
rising out of the map. Pretty cool! I have been using it to look at
everything I can think of. Most of the maps in their database are
pretty clear, though some of them are still blurry and gross - I guess
once they get new satellite imagery, they'll convert that. What's also
neat is if you go to Tools>Options>View, you can switch the view to
nighttime (and a sky full of stars) if you uncheck the "atmosphere"
box.

It's a free program. The only bad part is you might need a pretty new
computer to be able to run the graphics on it. If you're not sure,
only one way to tell really. :)

Steph