Hi guys,
Last year I decided to do something special as a Local Guide, so I made my goal to cover something big and difficult.
In Buenos Aires city we don´t have too many difficult places to do things for Google Maps, but my country, Argentina, is really big and has many beautiful places that are worth to visit.
So, before the winter in the southern hemisphere, I traveled to Germany and bought a special camera capable of taking up to 6 panoramics per second, It was very expensive, to be honest, and not too easy to work with, but after a few trials and a one week training in Frankfurt, I returned to Buenos Aires with this precious cargo.
During the winter, I went to Cerro Catedral, the biggest ski resort in South America, with more than 120 kilometers of snow tracks, and asked the administration their permission to make a virtual tour of the mountain. At first they believed that I was crazy, specially because I told them that I would be able to do it in just three days (of course, they didn´t know that I had my magic camera!).
So, after receiving the authorization, I mounted in a snowmobile during three consecutive days and I mapped the whole Cerro Catedral.
WIth the exception of the black tracks, that I couldn´t do because the snowmobile was not able to descend in a safe way for me and my camera (too step) all the other tracks were mapped (green, blue and red).
I set the camera to shoot one panoramic each 10 meters, automatically, using its own GPS system.
In the photo you can see me and my special camera mounted on the snowmobile that I used during these three days.
As I didn´t know the mountain very good, I asked an specialist from the mountain operator to drive the snowmobile while I was controlling my camera in the back.
In total I took almost 5 thousand photos covering approximately 50 kilometers of snow tracks.
The weather was very good during those days, so my rutine was to wake up very early, go to the mountain before the first tourist arrived, and went up to the designated place for each day.
Up in the mountain, there was my special guide and snowmobile driver ready to take me to the different snow tracks. With a map in my hand, a tablet in the other and the camera in my back, we drove very fast for all the mountain, getting the attention of the skiers who wondered what we were doing.
After three hard days and several weeks of edditing, the job was done and waiting for the best time to publish it.
Me and my camera waiting for a ride over the slopes of Cerro Catedral
I am at this moment working in my Panoskin to create the virtual tour, Hopefully it will be finished in the next days.
What an adventure!
I am looking forward to hear your stories.
All the best.
Jorge Fantin
Buenos Aires Argentina
Local Guide
