Google Earth (With Link to Bordin Trail Overview)

Google Earth - This my friends, has to be the hands-down coolest piece of software ever created! A decade and a half in the tech' field and I've yet to mess with something so impressive. And the price? How about free! Ya', free to one and all - with one caveat; you need a pretty decent PC to run the thing as its graphics intensive to say the least. I suggest that any PC based on a Pentium 4 processor and above will do the trick, its just that the program comes into its own when you install it on the latest/greatest PC hardware. Grab yourself a copy of this amazing free software at the Google earth website:

http://earth.google.com

PS: If you need any help installing or configuring it, pop me an email (digital at canada dot com), and I'll see what I can do.

Once you get it installed - and provided you have a new PC (something built in the past two years), there are a few tricks to get the most out of it's imagery capabilities. The software is set to a pretty low specification set in order to get it to run passably on older PCs - however, it has the ability to be set to really high resolution on powerful computer systems. If this describes your PC, follow these instructions.

Install the software
Open the application
Click on TOOLS (text toolbar atop the screen)
Select OPTIONS from the menu
Uncheck the 'Compress' circle (square check-box)
Set ANISOTROPHIC FILTERING to 'HIGH'
Set GRAPHICS MODE to OPEN GL
Click and hold on the 'TERRAIN QUALITY' slider and drag it all the way to the right of the screen
Click the APPLY and OK buttons
Close Google Earth and then re-open it

There you have it, better graphics! You can further tweak it’s speed by un-checking options that are not of interest to you in the left-hand side ‘Layers’ panel and turn off ‘Atmosphere’ in the VIEW/ATMOSPHERE text toolbars drop-down lists. Google has a full 'Help' menu system online here - http://earth.google.com/support

Once you have it installed; click on the link below to see a sample of the kind of stuff that will be available to everyone come spring 2009. The 'Bordin.kmz' file (below) will automatically open in Google Earth and hover over Jamie Johnston's 'Bordin Trail'. Its a tough nut, but if you're into steep and rocky, go ahead and check it out before the snow fly’s! There are multiple ways to access this trailhead. 1) Enter from the south via upper Smyth Rd. and ride it into town: 2) Hike-a-bike (or just hike), it as pictured in the attached link (difficult!) or 3) Ride up the Terasen gas line road via a route which enters at the end of Evergreen Drive, runs north/north-east to the top of the Wiltse area where you can catch onto the Teresen gas line road, winding up the gas line and hopping off at the Lay's Pond trailhead (long, but the 'easiest' option). Any way you slice it, this isn't a beginner's trail, go forewarned!

PS: Huge kudos to Jamie Johnston for all of the hard work he put into this route!

Save this file to your PC's desktop, then go there and double-click on the file to open it >>> http://www.mediafire.com/file/wyggw2z03u0/Bordin.kmz <<<