Google Earth Question

[BSquared]

[I've looked around a bit in the Google Earth forums and haven't found the answer, so...]
Does anybody here know how to get Google Earth to present images from ground level? When I zoom in as far as possible while looking straight down (the default mode) and then tilt the "camera" so I'm looking toward the horizon, my field of view is too small to see objects like mountains, and zooming back does just that: zooms me back away from my initial position. What I'm trying to do is to use Google Earth to duplicate (roughly) the viewpoint of some photos I took on my 2004 JMT trip, so I can identify peaks. Suggestions?

Maybe there's a better way to do this than Google Earth? I've tried using the topo maps of course, but I find I'm not very good at predicting what will be obscuring what. On the one instance where I was able to get a pretty good approximation of my position in Google Earth (looking south up the South Fork, Woods Creek canyon toward Rae Lakes with Diamond Peak in the left background), the results were truly spectacular!

-BSquared

[Shawn]

Did you already have a look at this:
http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4/#terrain

Maybe the 'terrain' feature needs to be checked?

Should render something kinda/sorta like this:

[BSquared]

Wow, that's beautiful, Shawn, and I think see what's going on: there's no way in Google Earth to look up! This sounds pretty elementary, but if I wanted to see the summits of Ritter and Banner in the Goggle Earth version of your picture, I don't think I could do it, and I suspect that's what's been my problem with my pictures as well. (In fact I just tried it, and the only way to see the summits is to back up by zooming out, just the problem I was comlaining about.)

Nice photo! I was only on the west side of Ritter and Banner once (my one and only climb of Banner) many years ago, and I admit I patted myself on the back a little as I typed in your coordinates after saying to myself, "hmmm... the Ritter-Banner saddle from Lake Catherine, I'll bet...

PS: How d'you get the sky to be blue? It's always black (with stars) for me...

[Shawn]

I think Google Earth gets a little quirky when it is at "ground level". Kind of hard to navigate with a mouse anyway. I tried "looking up" as you say and got this as a result.

The sky turns blue by selecting the 'atmosphere' option on the 'view' menu.

It is a real gem of a view, you should pat yourself on the back.