Virtual Expedition scouting? I came across this little number whilst looking for maps for a planned expedition and I was blown away!

Gone are the days of wondering what the valley will be like, where the rapids will be and if there will be a way out of deep canyons, you can 'virtually scout' using a FREE download program from GOOGLE EARTH.

You just go to www.earth.google.com download the free software and away you go, scout any river of a reasonable size, anywhere on the planet, without loading your kayak! Someone is spending a hell of a lot of time taking photos of the planet, sticking them altogether and streaming them to your computer all for free!

You can have a dam good look anywhere you like, some areas (USA) are in higher resolution than others, but even the low-res areas give you a good idea what the land is like. We have experimented by flying over rivers and gorges we have paddled, then comparing them to other valleys we would like to paddle down. The visual representation is amazing and with a bit of practice you quickly learn what is what.

There are different versions of the software you can download, the pro version has features to enable video capture of 'fly-by's and all sorts of things we have not checked out yet. The free version gets you access to the same image data base and is well worth a good look.

You will need an average computer with pretty good spec, 16mb+ of 3D capable video ram and a fast internet connection. Right now the software is not available for MAC, but they are working on it.

After a week of flying round the globe I am still blown away, what this could lead to for expeditions is potentially incredible. All I can say for now though, is this will be tested for real in a month or so, we will find out if a 'virtual canyon' is as good as it looks!