I had the pleasure of climbing Mt. Whitney, elev. 4421 m (14,505 ft), back in August '89 with a couple of buddies from the Phoenix traffic engineering firm we were working for at the time. It's not only the highest peak in California, but also the tallest peak in the contiguous U.S. 48 states.

Recently another friend sent me email that he was planning to summit Mt. Whitney this year, and it reminded me of the above 22-year-old, 360-degree panorama shot that one my climbing buddies spliced together from taking 16 sequential snapshots from the summit (we were not very high-tech in '89.....well, to be fair, digital cameras were not widely available at the time).  




Well.......THAT motivated me to go dig it out, dust it off, & digitize it, and now above you can see the finished product. I apologize for the quality, as I'm not very proficient w/ Photoshop, plus....bless its heart....the pic's been scotch-taped and push-tacked onto an uncountable # of walls in an uncountable # of abodes over the past 2 decades.

But nonetheless it's pretty remarkable, though, when you consider the awesome view of Death Valley (the lowest point in North America @ 282 ft. (86 m) below sea level) only 76 miles to the east and Sequoia National Park (home to the famous giant redwood trees) to the west (technically, the western slope of Whitney is inside Sequoia NP).

And here's another pic of me atop Mt. Whitney:



Enjoy !!

Oh yeah, my all-time favorite 360-degree panorama was taken from the summit of Mt. Everest, our planet's highest peak, by Australian photographer Roderick Mackenzie, and posted in a phenomenal fashion by a friend in Pennsylvania. Wow, check it out: http://pajamas2robe.home.comcast.net/%7Epajamas2robe/mountains.html (best viewed with Internet Explorer!) [Oops, that link went south! Sorry 'bout that.]