Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Chipping Away at That Canyon...

Yesterday the boys and I went substantially farther into the big canyon we've been exploring than ever before. I got sidetracked for a while by interest in a tributary, but this time I wanted to know what's really around that elusive corner.

There's a ledge of rock, as even as a manmade wall, that marked my furthest point of entry. I went there on a whim almost a year ago, poorly equipped and - as it turned out - coming down with the flu. Then my landlord died and what with one thing or another the whole year went to hell. The boys and I have only fairly recently started exploring the canyons again, and a desire to avoid news of Coronation Day seemed a perfect opportunity to take a really, really long walk.

We went what seemed like a helluva long way into it and discovered some interesting things, but that sucka clearly goes on for miles and miles and I'm just a broken-down, one-legged old hermit. I can only walk for a couple of hours before getting so sore that my energy level just plummets, so an expedition to find the end of this thing could take me days and I think the big dogs are probably too old and wild to ever put up with carrying their own supplies. I spent yesterday afternoon nursing my poor abraded stump and thinking of ways to do it, but the truth is I don't know if I'm ever gonna get much further in than I did yesterday. Which is kind of a bummer because now I want to know.

I've got a copy of Google Earth and think I can find the right canyon - a little work with a GPS will confirm or deny that later. But the resolution is so poor that it doesn't show me anything but a vague, squiggly line. I already know the damned thing's squiggly; I don't need the Deathstar to tell me that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Microsoft 'Live' earth or some such often has different satellite data than Google.

So often a low res area in google has quite a bit of detail on the Live application.

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