It’s Volcano Week 4 here at GSS. Volcanoes, about a week. You know the drill!

Japan’s Mount Fuji (Fuji-san) is one of the most iconic and best recognised of any of Earth’s volcano, and when GSS first launched we received many suggestions that we post it. Unfortunately Google’s imagery was fairly low resolution at the time.¹

Thankfully the current imagery is vastly improved, and with its famous snow-capped peak, the view of Mount Fuji from up here is absolutely stunning.

At 3,776 metres, Mount Fuji is Japan’s highest mountain by a good margin, and given how beautiful it is from ground-level, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Fuji is widely regarded with great national pride, and has so often been a subject of Japanese art.

Although it hasn’t erupted since 1708, Mount Fuji is considered “active”², albeit with a low risk of eruption. For the sake of any occupants of all the buildings perched around the crater, I hope the volcanologists are right.

These buildings aren’t permanently occupied however, as they mostly exist to service the needs of the 200,000 people who climb Mount Fuji every year. Paved roads run to 2300 metres, from where the summit can be reached in 5 to 7 hours.

As I write this Wikipedia is having technical issues, but they do have a page about Mount Fuji. If you’re interested in climbing it yourself, Japan Guide has the full breakdown of how to go about it.

Thanks to (deep breath) Adam, hito, Ben, Jacek Fedorynski, Anne Mathews, Caius Toneriko, Jared, Eric, Ron Vogel, Roy Tanaka, Chris Palmieri, Planck, Ramsey Callaway, Matt Van Pelt, Corey, Colin Allen, TSG, Eitan Nudel, Fero GUNIC, Adrian Ward, Boniface, numlok, Tom Grusendorf, ian, Jerry Mills, Manuel Fernandez, Phillip Lockwood-Holmes, Dan, Turtleknee, TomG and Alfred.

The giant Perito Moreno glacier in the Patagonian region of Argentina is notable for a couple of reasons. First of all, it is one of only three in the area that are not currently retreating. Secondly, it actually advances right the way across a lake, Lago Argentino, forming an ice dam that can reach more than 70 metres above the surface.

The water backs up behind the wall of ice, raising the level of the southern arm of the lake until the pressure becomes so great that the dam collapses. This process repeats in an unpredictable cycle, every four or five years on average, but sometimes much more or less. (The last rupture event, in July 2008, was captured on video.) Notice how the shoreline of the southern part of the lake has a margin of bare rock, indicating the fluctuating water level – unlike the northern part, which has vegetation almost down to the water’s edge.

Perito Moreno is one of 48 glaciers that descend from the 350km-long Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which is the third largest continental ice sheet in the world (after Antarctica and Greenland). Among them are the Upsala Glacier, which flows into the northern end of Lago Argentino. This glacier has shrunk markedly over the past few decades, and Greenpeace has used photos comparing its extent in 1928 and 2004 to highlight climate change.¹

While there is no high-res imagery of Perito Moreno (except for the topmost part), Google does have some stunning close-ups of the Upsala Glacier, showing jagged shadows, huge icebergs and walls of rock scoured clean by the ice, with a sharp line marking the former edge of the glacier. Your geography teacher would love it.

While you’re here, over on the Chilean side of the ice field, check out the Brüggen Glacier², the longest in the southern hemisphere – it’s impressive, even in low resolution, and parts of it have high res too!

Thanks to Cory Lueninghoener. There’s more info at (you guessed it) Wikipedia.

Welcome to the second annual GSS Desert Week! In time-honoured tradition, we’ll mostly be posting about deserts. For about a week!

It appears that snow has fallen in hell! At least it has along “The Devil’s Highway“. Let’s take a drive down former US Route 666 to see what kind of trouble we can get into.

Beginning in the mile high state of Colorado and running south through the Sonoran desert, the demonically-named road ends in Douglas, Arizona along the Mexican border.

This highway was of course named for bearing the Number of the Beast, but a high number of vehicular fatalities attached a stigma to the road that persists, despite it having been renamed in 2003. This may have been due in part to a serious bout of “chronic sign theft“.

Theft along the Devil’s Highway you say? To be expected for sure!

There’s definitely some sort of dark magic happening on the highway, as you can see in this aerial shot south of Gallup, New Mexico, where the road has been sliced into two parts, which run alongside but never into each other¹!

While the route number and nickname draw many tourists on their own, many often stop by to see another spectacular sight, the Shiprock rock formation (Wikipedia). It’s close enough to the road that even the Street View car got a good look!

“The day it snows in hell” appears to have arrived in this shot as well, as there is clearly snow on the ground right in the middle of America’s hottest desert.

Like Route 666, the Sonoran desert stretches from the Mexican border to Colorado; covering an impressive 311,000 square km. It’s home to dozens of mammal, fish and amphibian species, hundreds of bird species, and thousands of native bee and plant species; as well as America’s only population of Jaguars!

It is also the only place in the world the famous saguaro cactus grows, despite being an international symbol for deserts.²

Route 666 and the Sonoran desert are in an area of extremes. In the day the sun scorches down on all weary travellers. At night the heat dissipates to the point that there is often snow on the ground by morning. You fall asleep sweating, you wake up freezing.

So consider yourself warned. The desert is is desolate, rugged, and rough. But come on! If you’re going to travel the Devil’s Highway, you going to face some evils, right?

Welcome to the second annual GSS Desert Week! In time-honoured tradition, we’ll mostly be posting about deserts. For about a week!

While Canada is generally thought of as a land of ice and snow, it is home to one arid desert – the Osoyoos or Nk’Mip Desert of British Columbia.¹

Surrounding the community of Osoyoos, and the lake of the same name, this area of the Okanagan is home to desert plants and animals not found anywhere else in the country. It is one of the hottest and driest parts of Canada year-round, and some believe that Osoyoos Lake is the warmest in the world (though there are several competing claims for that title.)

The desert is characterised by barren hillsides and plains, bordered by lush green fields and orchards which survive with heavy irrigation.

For a small desert, it is surprisingly well endowed with visitor centres. The Osoyoos Desert Society has its Centre to the north-west of town, while the Nk’Mip Indian Band’s Desert Cultural Centre is “an architectural marvel sensitively constructed into a hillside” on the other side of the lake. At both, you can learn about the local flora and fauna through static displays and a network of trails

The Nk’Mip Band have also managed to carve a golf course out of the desert, with an associated resort and spa, while nearby is an estate of vineyards producing some of the wines for which the Okanagan is renowned.

Some distance out of town, the desert even has a salt lake, called – not surprisingly – Spotted Lake. The spots appear when water evaporates, leaving rich mineral deposits behind.

Panoramio has a good selection of pictures of Canada’s Desert.

In The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe, when the three Pevensie children (minus Edmund) arrived at Aslan’s camp, they were happening upon what we (of the other world) know as Elephant Rocks.

Looking from above, the boulders look like nothing more than a few pebbles to be picked up and stuffed in your pocket, but when looking straight on the boulders are just massive!

Named after the big, leathery mammals due to their shape and size, these naturally shaped limestone formations near Duntroon on the South Island of New Zealand were made world famous in the 2005 film, by Andrew Adamson.

Looking at these official production stills from the movie, you can clearly see the enormous size of the boulders.

The Streetview Squad did swing by the site when capturing images. However, it looks like a pretty foggy day as its difficult to make out the rock formations from the street.

The area is also a favorite of climbers, specifically known as a great place to do some bouldering. According to the The Crag, a rock climbing enthusiast’s social network, there have been at least 252 different routes mapped.

Update: Thanks to Ian Brodie for letting us know that the production stills from above are actually from Castle Rock. Check out Brodie’s website where he has first hand photography of the Narnia set!