
Mt Everest in 3D: Everest Avalanche Tragedy - njsubedi
http://everestavalanchetragedy.com/mt-everest-journey.html
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davidjohnstone
This is the thing that I was wishing existed a couple of months ago when I
read "Into Thin Air". It's a fantastic read about the 1996 Mount Everest
disaster where eight climbers died, but I often had difficulty visualising
what was going on. (There's also a film, Everest, due out next year.)

To be better convey what it's like to climb Everest, I think this
visualisation would be improved if it had more annotations about what makes
climbing difficult and the dangers involved. For example, the Khumbu Icefall
is a fast moving glacier with many crevasses and ice towers, and has a habit
of hosting avalanches and falling ice towers. Climbers try to limit the amount
of time they spent here due to the danger, although Sherpa guides tend to
cross it many times to stock Camp 1 in preparation for their clients.

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js2
I'd like to recommmend Touching the Void, an amazing mountaineering/survival
story. Was also made into a movie that the author of the book seems to have
favorable opinion of.

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justinator
There's a documentary also called "Touching The Void", which has fairly in-
depth interviews with both climbers involved.

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trevyn
I am deeply frustrated that there is absolutely zero sense of scale in this
visualization. How big are people? How big are the camps? I have no idea.

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tdicola
One crazy way to think about it, looking down at base camp at ~17,000 feet
you're looking at a spot that's higher than almost all the mountains in the
US.

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vacri
Driving into Colorado from the west, I drove over a mountain pass that was
something like 12000 ft high. When I got to my destination, I thought I'd
convert that into meters and compare to the mountains back home in Australia.
12000' is 3600m... and the tallest mountain back home is Kosciuszko, which is
2200m high. I'd just driven over a pass 50% higher than the peak of the
tallest mountain back home...

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Someone
I know it is a sign of the amazing times we live in, but that managed to be
less than I expected. It's not at a 3D model, but 'just' a panorama.

And yes, the times are amazing. Look at [http://www.everest3d.de/en/everest-
in-3d/everest-3d-app.html](http://www.everest3d.de/en/everest-
in-3d/everest-3d-app.html). It looks like somebody thinks he can make money by
selling an app that allows those on Everest to browse a 3D model of the
mountain (what else is the GPS option for?)

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spydum
On a related note, the other huge resolution photo tour of everest seems to
have a bunch of clickable links, which take you to more detailed up close
photo tours.. this is truly cool as a companion:
[http://www.npr.org/2012/12/20/167621313/a-billion-pixel-
tour...](http://www.npr.org/2012/12/20/167621313/a-billion-pixel-tour-of-
mount-everest)

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handzhiev
It would be nice to me able to switch the elevation to meters

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archagon
Kinda puts into perspective how it's just a bunch of tall, snowy rocks.

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sgtnasty
The problem with ALL of these images, virtual 3d tours, interactive maps - it
just does NOT show scale! What does a person look like in these images? I have
never been there, but I have no sense of scale of these images. Can a person
be seen from these?

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sliverstorm
I believe a large tree would barely be visible at this scale.

(Of course, there are no trees because this is far, far above treeline)

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shutupalready
I've never seen a photo or visualization that gives a feel for the size of the
area at the summit of Everest. There are thousands of photos taken at summit
of course, but it's always someone standing on the summit himself, so you
don't know how much space is behind the photographer.

According to this source
[http://www.alanarnette.com/everest/everestsouthroutes.php](http://www.alanarnette.com/everest/everestsouthroutes.php)
the summit is 30 square feet (or 3 square meters). I'd still love to see an
close-up aerial photo from a helicopter or plane directly overhead.

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dbpatterson
You won't find helicopter - air is too thin (one of the reasons why rescues
are hard). But maybe a plane could give you one.

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hellsten
[http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0509/whats_new/h...](http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0509/whats_new/helicopter_everest.html)

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darkhorn
Would be better if it had meters and showing where people slept, and how many
days you have to stay in each camp etc.

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bunderbunder
The camps where people sleep are marked approximately.

Here's an example acclimatization schedule from one expedition company:
[http://www.mounteverest.net/expguide/accli.htm](http://www.mounteverest.net/expguide/accli.htm)
The schedule doesn't mention camp 4 because you ideally only stay there the
night before a summit attempt.

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PhasmaFelis
It's nice to see the Sherpa getting some acknowledgement.

I never understood why, when a rich white dude pays tens of thousands of
dollars for a bunch of other dudes to scout a path, clear out obstacles, set
up camps and caches, and carefully escort him up a mountain, it's the rich
white dude who gets the credit and glory. I mean, it's still a pretty
impressive achievement, but it's not half so impressive as the guys who do it
day in, day out for a simple living.

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vacri
I imagine that amongst the Sherpa, it's the guides that get the recognition,
and one rich white is much the same as another. Cultures tend to lionise their
own members.

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tathagatadg
I'm still mesmerized - the technology behind the site and the the beauty of
nature. I will never make it there in my life - but being able to appreciate
it almost in first person, makes me so happy. The sound of the wind adds
another dimension.

Would have been so cool if I could send this to my Geography teacher in my
school 15 years back. She is probably still drawing bergschrund, crevasses,
gorges in a blackboard with chalk.

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efesak
Turn off your Adblock if you have problems with loading

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allochthon
Really enjoyed the visualization, even if it was a little hard to get a sense
of the scale.

With no flat area, Camp 3 looks like a bear to stay at. If anyone is curious,
wind speeds get up to an estimated 175 mph (78 m/s) at the summit [1]. I would
be worried about being whisked off of the top of the summit.

[1] [http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/extreme-
we...](http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/extreme-weather-the-
weather-of-the-summit-of-mt-everest)

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fantanfantan
I tried this on an iPad and 3d viewing works with the gyroscope. I got a 360
view on the summit just by spinning around on my chair sitting at home. Very
cool!

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spydum
Yes this is seriously cool effect. Showed it to my five year old and she got
dizzy :)

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medium
Is it me or is this the first time we have seen an MP4 working in tandem with
javascript? Does anyone have any other examples of this? Looks great.

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lectrick
Nope, seen many examples of this recently (but I'm a web developer, and we
usually pass around links to the latest and greatest). Of course, I can't
think of one off the top of my head now...

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medium
If you remember them, please post here... I am surprised there is so little
interactive HTML5-MP4 examples right now.

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spydum
So, I posted before the "billion pixel tour" from NPR, but the guys who
actually created it have a far cooler narrative which shows the whole trek,
not just one vantage point.. start here:
[http://explore.glacierworks.org/en/](http://explore.glacierworks.org/en/)

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instanttaylor
These guys have video of a lot of that climb. www.trekvisions.com

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barrkel
Never loaded on Firefox.

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zzleeper
Never loaded..

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contingencies
Same here. I don't see why privacy invading JS bloat from facebook, twitter,
google analytics or scorecardresearch should be critical for its operation.

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lectrick
I contract for a media company that handles (and cleanses) PII
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_inform...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifiable_information)).
We take this information very seriously. We could give a shit about who you
are, we just want you to become the same anonymous number for tracking
reasons. Why is this such a big deal? AT WORST you'd get ads actually targeted
to your interests instead of bullshit ads you can't click through (see:
YouTube). Perhaps I'm sort of less sensitive to this since my first name and
last name is a primary key to me (there is nobody else with my name combo on
the planet, meaning I'm horribly googleable already).

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PhasmaFelis
> _We could give a shit about who you are, we just want you to become the same
> anonymous number for tracking reasons._

Maybe I don't want to become an anonymous number for tracking reasons.

Anyway, maybe your particular company is all nice and responsible, but if so
you're hardly representative.

