Watch Austrian skiers abseil from Zeppelin to ride down pristine alpine slopes
- 5 years ago
Free riders board a Zeppelin to fly from Friedrichshafen, Germany to the Eastern Alps in Austria to abseil, ski and snowboard on pristine alpine slopes.
In the middle of February three Tyrolean Free riders, Stefan Ager, Andreas Gumpenberger and Fabian Lentsch step into the cabin of a giant 75-meters airship at the Zeppelin hangar in Friedrichshafen, Germany to take off direction Brandnertal, Vorarlberg, Austria.
They arrive above Kleiner Valkastiel (2.233 m), open the hatch and throw a 50-meter rope into the deep. Locked in, they rope down and float in the air to experience an almost surreal, breathtaking unseen scenery.
Looking through the open hatch, Stefan Ager's pulse rised: "When I was hanging under the Zeppelin, I felt like abseiling off a cloud, it did really feel bizarre," he says.
Once the athletes were delivered back on solid ground, the Zeppelin turns and sees off the riders on a steep flank for them to ride down picture-perfect untouched mountain tracks.
Andreas Gumpenberger is relieved everything worked out so well: "This was more than just abseiling off a giant Zeppelin. The project demanded long preparation. The cabin of the airship had to be adapted slightly and the pilots were at their limits in points of flight altitude and range of the airship."
It took the crew two years of intensive preparation to make this idea happen.
In the middle of February three Tyrolean Free riders, Stefan Ager, Andreas Gumpenberger and Fabian Lentsch step into the cabin of a giant 75-meters airship at the Zeppelin hangar in Friedrichshafen, Germany to take off direction Brandnertal, Vorarlberg, Austria.
They arrive above Kleiner Valkastiel (2.233 m), open the hatch and throw a 50-meter rope into the deep. Locked in, they rope down and float in the air to experience an almost surreal, breathtaking unseen scenery.
Looking through the open hatch, Stefan Ager's pulse rised: "When I was hanging under the Zeppelin, I felt like abseiling off a cloud, it did really feel bizarre," he says.
Once the athletes were delivered back on solid ground, the Zeppelin turns and sees off the riders on a steep flank for them to ride down picture-perfect untouched mountain tracks.
Andreas Gumpenberger is relieved everything worked out so well: "This was more than just abseiling off a giant Zeppelin. The project demanded long preparation. The cabin of the airship had to be adapted slightly and the pilots were at their limits in points of flight altitude and range of the airship."
It took the crew two years of intensive preparation to make this idea happen.