[imagesource: Triangle News]

The limits that we think exist in daily life do not by any means exist for thrill-seeking daredevils.

Madcap Fred Fugen just came up with a new stunt, which he likes to call “sky skiing”.

If you’re imagining a guy with skis attached doing a few cool ski tricks in the sky then yes, the stunt certainly includes that.

But also, launching oneself from a chairlift attached to a hot air balloon 6 500 metres in the sky, pirouetting in the air for what feels like an inordinate amount of time, skydiving, and then landing on a mountainside to ski along merrily with a parachute.

This did indeed happen, above the snow-capped mountains of La Clusaz in France:

Image: Triangle News

I know, you really just have to see it to believe it:

That was the longest ski jump ever.

Fugen, a 42-year-old stuntman, told The Telegraph that performing this incredible feat was “realising a dream”.

Besides racking up the pure, unadulterated gumption to actually go ahead with it, there were many logistical challenges to sort out:

He said: “We had already imagined going on skis from the back of an aeroplane, but it had never happened because it was too complicated for many reasons.

“But when someone told me about the chairlift, I immediately imagined it and thought to myself, ‘that would be crazy!’

“We looked for a helicopter to which we could attach it, but no pilot would accept. So we moved on to a hot air balloon, and it worked very well.”

The idea was to attach a pelvis harness to a parachute and sit in a chairlift, which Fugen said he did for about half an hour, commenting that he was “very well seated” and that it was “funny” but mostly “unheard of”.

Yep, unprecedented for sure.

Hey, it’s nice to use that word outside of a pandemic context for once.

[source:telegraph]