Everest Base Camp by Keith Cowing

This panorama was taken by Keith Cowing on 1 May 2009 at the IMG camp at Everest Base Camp, Nepal. A GigaPan Epic and Canon PowerShot G9 were used.

Beginning at far left you can see a portion of the Khumbu Icefall and the lower West Shoulder of Everest, the source of many severe avalanches this past season (one of which was fatal). The base of Nuptse is just to the right of the icefall. Roughly 120 degrees from the left margin is the Khumbu valley and the approach all climbers take to reach Everest Base Camp (at 17,500 feet above sea level). The image then swings around the cirque to show the base of Pumori, Lintgren and Cholastse, before arriving back at the base of Everest and the icefall.

In the foreground you can see the International Mountain Guides base camp, as well as photographer Keith Cowing of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education (minus his right hand due to a processing artifact)

This picture was taken as part of the coverage of astronaut Scott Parazynski's climb (Everest Updates online at onorbit.com/everest  ) in coordination with Keith Cowing and the Challenger Center for Space Science Education ( www.challenger.org  )