Russian climbers secretly scale Shanghai Tower, while Canadian police hunt for illegal BASE jumper (VIDEOS)
posted Friday, February 14, 2014 at 2:08 PM EDT
Hold onto your seats folks, because this stuff is not for the faint of heart. Today we learned of two occasions of people climbing where they weren't meant to, and bringing their cameras along for the ride.
In Shanghai, Russian duo Vadim Makharov and Ritaliy Raskalov managed to secretely scale the Shanghai Tower, the second tallest skyscraped in the world. Timing their excursions for the low security during Chinese New Year, they climbed all 120 floors, much of it outdoors, with almost no safety equipment. On his Livejournal, Raskalov explained:
Aware of the strict Chinese law, we prepared carefully and picked an appropriate date, the Chinese New Year day. At that time the security was less watchful, workers were on vacations, and cranes did not work. We got to the crane at around midnight. It took us almost two hours to get on the 120th floor by foot. And also, we spend almost 18 hours on top of the building, sleeping and waiting for better weather. The result you can see in our new video.
The video's just below, but be warned, the extreme heights aren't for anyone with vertigo. Even someone with a strong stomach might have some issues with peering over the top of a crane, 650m above the city below. You can also see the photos from their climb at the links above.
Meanwhile, in Canada, another daredevil tried a similar stunt, but is now being sought by police after his actions. An unknown man BASE jumped from a gondola at Whistler Park in British Columbia. In a statement, a Whistler Blackcomb representative said "Whistler Blackcomb takes tampering a lift system very seriously and is working with the RCMP to press charges and recoup damages to the Peak 2 Peak Gondola." And, of course, he uploaded the entire thing to YouTube.
The woman in the video, assumed to be his accomplice, has been detained and charged. Which just goes to show, if you're going to film yourself doing an illegal act, you should at least protect the identity of the people helping you out!
(via DesignTaxi)