Google recruits Avengers of mountaineering to create 3D Street view of Mount Blanc
Google has teamed up with a team of super athletes to provide a 3D guide of Mount Blanc for Google Street View.
Mount Blanc can now be explored effortlessly in 3D thanks to Google’s ambitious Street view mapping which now includes Europe’s largest mountain.
Navigating the 4,810 meter high mountain is no mean feat and in order to map it out Google recruited a team of the world’s most experienced athletes and mountaineers who can be spotted in the resulting images.
One member of the team is trail-running sensation Kilian Jornet, who holds the world record for the fastest assent and decent of Mount Blanc in just 4 hours 57 minutes. The Spaniard, who is currently training to set a record for the fast assent and decent of mount Everest without oxygen, traversed the mounting with a hi-tech Trekker camera to capture the images.
Legendary mountain climber Ueli Steck climbed some of the mountain’s most difficult routes and natural cathedral-like peaks to capture images and also features in the images.
French climbing legend Catherine Destivelle is also present, ascending Aiguille du Midi, the 3,842-meter peak near Mont Blanc, and professional French skier Candide Thovex can be seen flying through the air.
Google hopes the Street View imagery will also serve as an important digital record of Mont Blanc, which is being affected by global warming.
Other impressive destinations already mapped by Google include the Amazon canopy, remote areas of Mongolia, Peru’s Inca citadel Machu Picchu and Jordan’s desert temples at Petra.