Snowboarding
Air Lines: To Ride Down, First You've Gotta Fly Up
Watch some of the world's best lines get tackled by paraglider in a 48-hour Red Bull exclusive.
De Le Rue and Anthamatten: "Degrees North"
© Tero Repo/Red Bull Content Pool
Imagine you’re a world-champion freeride snowboarder whose dream in life is to find and ride the best lines in the Northern Hemisphere. Wherever they may be.
Now, come to terms with the fact that those lines are in some of the most remote, inaccessible, inhospitable places on earth. To ride them, you have to find them. The find them, you have to reach them. And once you do, you’ve gotta climb them.
For Xavier De Le Rue, the solution was simple, if utterly insane: Fly up and drop in — literally — via motorized paraglider. Never mind that your partner in crime, skier, mountain guide and intended pilot Sam Anthamatten had never flown the contraption before setting out on a two-year adventure. When you have a dream, such realities are mere speed bumps to be negotiated along the way.
In the film “Degrees North,” available exclusively right now on Red Bull TV for a limited 48-hour engagement, De Le Rue and Anthamatten have plenty to negotiate. Like 40-below temps that will freeze exposed skin in minutes, potential polar bear attacks that require rifles at all times, avalanches and perhaps the biggest project buzzkill of all: the worst (meaning driest) winter in Alaska in 40 years.
Will the dream come to fruition? See for yourself in the clip below and then in the full show at Red Bull TV:
WATCH NOW: "Degrees North"
And while you're at it, don't miss these other awesome snow shows on Red Bull TV: