My Favorite Canyon Lands

I cannot believe I stayed up this late — excitement over a new tool and an old canyon, I guess. An eagerly-awaited 3D mouse from Connexion arrived tonight.

This new device cuts my project time in half when creating Google Earth flythrough videos. Scripting takes hours for each minute of video. I enjoy working manually with KML tours. There are great advantages, like cueing up waypoints and paths with subtle fades and reveals. Scripting (often thousands of lines at a time) was a great way to learn some of the inner workings of this technology, but this mouse is pretty freaking compelling right off the bat!

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For this first experiment, I chose to record some of my most treasured canyon areas: the spectacular, nearly untraveled Little Colorado Gorge and its connections through upper Grand Canyon. You will see portions of the experts-only descent from Horse Trail to the Confluence in this video, and a few segments of the journey out on the formidable Beamer and Tanner trails through the far eastern reaches of the National Park.

I love this corner of the earth very, very much. The very last shot is “Conquistador Camp,” our favorite target when making treks out to the rim over the last 5 years. A detachment from Cortez’ main party spent a few days and nights here in the 1500s, searching for a way into the canyon.