One of my favorite places on planet earth is the Grand Canyon. I’ve been multiple times, and I know I’ll continue to head back for as long as I can. I find the canyon absolutely breath taking. Two things I have done that I highly recommend if you ever go; take a helicopter tour that lands you close to the river bed, and ride the mules to the bottom of the canyon. Seriously ride the mule train to the bottom and back.

Now, if you haven’t been, and or can’t go to the Grand Canyon, Google is mapping the entire canyon with special street view back packs. The new Street View images will cover more than 75 miles of trails and surrounding roads.

The promo video below is really nice with loads of time-lapse footage capturing the scenic beauty of the national park, but the actual maps site is even better. On the maps site you can navigate your way through trails and across the rugged terrain, or you can take a look behind the scenes to see how Google is putting this together. I hope Google does more of this kind of thing. What a great way to use the technology.