RIDGELINE VI: KAZAKHSTAN - GEE ATHERTON

This most recent trip we've been out in Kazakhstan filming a big mountain project. One of the craziest things about Kazakhstan that you notice very quickly is just the scale of the place. A huge array of different terrains. You know you can be in desert in 30 degrees sun one day and then 4 000 meters up a mountain and in thick snow and ice the next. Everywhere you look lights you can't turn you back on any of it you just want to shoot everything ride everything we're just dashing from spot to spot so much fun. Okay boys good to go. We quickly became aware that the most dangerous part to this trip was going to be just how remote and you just feel this sense of being a long way from home. Still a bit of pressure not to crash. It's naive to think you could have you know crashes of the magnitude of the ones I've had before out here and everything would be fine for a drop or gap or a shoot. You have to make sure you know it's got your undivided attention. The more extreme environments you come to the less scope there is for surviving big crashes. Just try to use the drone to find a rideable line through the cliff band. Yeah we're still looking we might have found one but it's hard to tell if the drop's going to be five foot or 25 foot. That would look insane. You know you're in an environment where any problems you encounter or any problems you create for yourselves you know you're going to have to deal with. Oh my god why did I do that? That was really gnarly. Quite a scary line. Well it was the first run of the day on top of this huge ridge and he was trying to get his eyes to work. You can't really ride a lot of this stuff first so you kind of walk it and you're like looking and right remember that line remember that line so that rock turn there you have to remember all these tiny details and then get to the top and just turn it all around and repeat it perfectly. Is this it? No it can't be. Oh my god it's steep. I didn't know there was a drop into it. There's always that small chance of dropping in something terrible happening and then you're going to go all the way to the bottom anyway aren't you? On or off the bike. I think we found the limit of the chutes we can ride here. That was so close. Once we realized the remoteness and the size of the country was going to be you know a massive risk and add a lot of danger we also realized that the people of Kazakhstan were you know one of its greatest strengths. People that we asked for help were only too happy to you know go out of their way to help us and we started to make these connections. They loved the fact that we were out there in their country. We quickly realized that without these people that the trip would almost be impossible. The whole thing just gathered momentum and speed as we went along. By the end of the trip you know we're just dropping blind into lines knowing that you know the ground would hold you and trusting you know exactly what you could do and how hard you could push and it was amazing to learn that. I think the main thing I get asked when you tell people about a project like this is is just why. To me it's not really a question it's just what I love doing you know it's there's no question when I'm out here as to whether I want to hit something or not you know I want to push as hard as I can and find as wild the lines as possible. I find a satisfaction in you know riding stuff that's as difficult as I can at that moment and I guess all you can do is make it as safe as possible and then you know that's as far as you can go with it. This project was quite a jump from stuff we've done in the past. It's shown us that if we trust in ourselves and the crew and trust what we can do and keep pushing and keep being ambitious with you know there's no limit to what we can do with it. Absolutely horrific. I don't want to do that again.