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Matthias Giraud: The cliff right over there,
straight into the valley.
In the shoot, make a couple of turns up there, turn left,
get on the ridge, point it, and then straight to heaven.
Matthias: Do you see that avalanche?
It was so sweet.
We just skied this, oh my God.
Speaker 1:
Matthias:
Yeah!
Aiguille Croche, here we go! Oh yeah!
Matthias: My name is Matthias Giraud,
and my life's mission is to promote the sport
of skiing and BASE jumping in a professional
and humble manner to inspire human adventure.
The risk involved, potentially life-threatening injuries
or even death,
and I'm still doing it aside from all the risks
because I believe it's a great way to live a fulfilling life,
and I'm a firm believer that you can't let fear
stand in the way of your dreams.
Skiing has been a big influence and driving force in my life,
I started skiing when I was 18 months old,
so it's pretty much my first love.
Josephina Giraud: Before he could even talk,
he put his finger up on the hill
where his sisters left and he said, "Huh,
huh, huh, huh." He wanted to follow them.
I carried him uphill, I said, "Wait for Mommy until I'm down."
And here he came and that was 20, 30 times,
he could not stop it.
Robert Giraud: He loved risky things
and also a charming child, I mean a very interesting child.
Matthias: My first big jump, I was four
years old, I remember it like it was yesterday.
I was following a ski instructor and right behind her house,
there was this kicker, just hit that jump and I just felt
I was on top of the world, man, just
just flying, soaring through the air and then I landed
and it was super painful.
So I had two realizations at once: flying and jumping
is amazing, but the landing hurts.
That was my first experience of flying.
From there, it was over, that's all I wanted to do.
I love speed and I love air, to this day,
I don't think that has changed much.
I think it's just getting worse.
Josephina: When he was in the ski school,
the ski teachers told me
they all have to follow you know those little children, which
is really cute to see, but he always made
a detour, he looked for little bumps to jump
already, very, very young, so always looking
for challenges, and danger, and huge sensations
since he was young and still, he continues.
Matthias:
It's not like you wake up one day
and you're like, "You know, I'm passionate about jumping
off stuff. I think I'm going to do that."
It's something that is inside you.
I've been jumping off stuff since I was a kid, and all these
moments felt like it was just going through a major milestone.
And since then, it's just like you're always looking
for a new milestone to achieve and go through.
I want to see if we can jump from that waterfall
way up there.
There's a big ledge, I don't know if we can, but
we may be able to jump straight from that rock up there.
I'm pretty sure that's it, man.
This right here, this is what life is about,
being in an intense situation, it's about intense moments.
Ya know this beautiful sun poking through this waterfall,
this amazing setting, and aside from fear,
there's not really anything
telling me no, so I think we got to go.
Alright, three, two, one, see ya.
When I was nine years old, I saw a movie called
Pushing The Limits, it's kind of like a cheesy '90s movie.
I went back to see it at a theater four times
in a row because I was so inspired by those guys.
It's kind of like the adrenaline junkie kind
of movie but it had soul, he had spirit.
Those guys had a higher purpose than just seeking
the rush, they had goals, they had daring objectives, but
they weren't going to compromise to reach those
and for me, that became the definition of being a man.
If you are a man,
you do everything to realize your dream.
Jessie Hall: I met Matthias big-mountain skiing
at a Big Mountain competition, just skiing and jumping
off big cliffs and we started talking about parachutes,
and he knew I was into it too, and he was just
really excited and fired up about it
and would not stop asking questions.
Matthias: This is gonna be good, all right. Let's do it man.
Matthias: My jumps started in 2007,
Jessie Hall took me to the Perrine Bridge in Idaho,
and it was just a beautiful sunrise over the Snake River.
It was 7:00 in the morning, it was kind of cold
and Jesse was like, "All right, climb over the rail."
I remember climbing over the rail and Jesse was like,
"Hey, look at the horizon,
take a deep breath" and then you give the count.
I remember looking at the horizon and being like,
"Oh yes, I'm ready. This is beautiful".
I just took a deep breath, three, two, one, see ya.
Parachute opens and you're like, "Oh my God,
this is just the most beautiful thing
I've ever done in my life."
Jessie: His first day BASE jumping,
we did nine jumps, which is crazy.
Most of the time you do one or two but we went up
to the bridge in Idaho and just rallied that thing
and did more jumps than most people do in a day
ever on his first day jumping, and he did awesome.
One, two, three.
Matthias: Three, two, one, see ya.
Matthias: Oh la la la Twin Falls, Idaho.
Todd Davis: It's just the guy
is intense, he's like taking, if you're lucky,
80 years of a life and just
squeezing that 80 years into like 5 years.
It's just the guy is the most entertaining,
completely psychotic,
friendly, crazy athlete you could ever imagine
and ever hang out with.
If you ever cross paths with him,
you're never going to forget him.
Matthias: Being yourself gives meaning to your existence.
And jumping stuff is part of me, and whether I'm scared of it
or whether I don't feel good about the idea of doing it,
if I force myself to push through and do it,
I feel like I'm evolving as an individual, and I feel at peace.
If I haven't jumped in a few weeks, I feel like
I don't know what's important and what's not.
Everything just becomes a big blur.
The second I jump, everything just has its place again.
Suzanne Montgomery: There's so much involved.
A lot of people probably watch Matthias on TV and think,
"Okay, well, he's hurling his body off that cliff,"
but they don't realize how much is involved, how much
time it takes, and how many elements are involved.
When you do jump something,
well, you need to plan it out
very thoroughly, because there is no room for error, at all.
You have to be on point,
everything has to work exactly properly.
You have to know where your landing zone is,
that you still have enough time to fly there with the canopy
if you can't just land right at the bottom of the cliff.
It's a lot of things happening in a very short period of time.
J.T. Holmes: You step off that mountain
and you start accelerating,
and you're going to get that feeling
like you fell down on an elevator shaft
or like you're on the diving part of the roller coaster.
When I do a BASE jump, I'll jump off a mountain and two seconds,
three seconds into it, I think to myself,
"We've really done it now.
We're really moving, can't take that back." It's like you took
the bottle of champagne, you popped that bottle,
and it's going.
Matthias: BASE jumping, you can't just really
just run off a cliff and open a parachute.
There's a lot of hazards down there,
a lot of boulders, a lot of trees.
I think it is tall enough to open my parachute,
but I got to measure a couple things
to make sure that I have enough
altitude to make it to the landing area.
I got to calculate all this with my magical range finder here
and see if it adds up or not.
Jessie: It's kind of strange how you
gradually move in to doing crazier and things.
I grew up skiing and rock-climbing,
so I was used to being on cliffs and being on skis
and then you start sky-diving and jumping out of planes.
You think it's crazy for a little bit,
then you just start getting used to it.
You just get desensitized to the danger and start
doing more and more dangerous things, I guess.
Matthias: Ah-haa!
Todd: You can't help but have that level of progression,
whether you're skiing or wingsuiting
or no matter what you're doing,
you always have to up the ante and yes,
it's a little bit dangerous, but that's why it's fun.
Matthias: I started thinking about ski BASE jumping
when I moved to the US.
I was driving to the ski area and saw this mountain
on the horizon with a huge couloir and a 300-foot
cliff at the bottom, but there's no way you
can ski that mountain, you're going to die.
I started thinking, "Well, if I had a parachute to my skiing,
I could just jump off and pull the parachute and fly away."
This kid comes up to me and is like, "Hey, I heard that
you want to jump this mountain,
ski it, and then open a parachute.
Come and check this out." He played ski video
and I saw these guys skiing down this mountain.
Standing off this 600-foot cliff with a huge front flip.
A parachute opens and then the guy lands,
and his name was Shane McConkey.
After that, this guy became my hero.
I've watched every single of his movies
and it's like, "This guy is doing what I want to do.
This is where I need to be."
Jessie: It's pretty amazing
to combine skiing and jumping together.
It really can take your skiing to the next level.
You can ski lines that close out with a giant cliff
and just go flying off of them and open a parachute.
You, obviously, can't do that otherwise, but the parachute
just opens the world up to so much more stuff.
Holmes: If you start combining
disciplines, you tend to complicate things.
It doesn't mean it's a bad idea, it's actually a wonderful idea
and a superb feeling, but when things go wrong,
they can go wrong really quickly,
and the path to safety becomes a lot more complicated
because your whole situation is more complicated.
Matthias: Iwent to Mount Hood,
and it looked there was beautiful cliffs over there.
Nobody had ever BASE jumped Mount Hood.
I'm like, "It could be cool to do
a first ski BASE jump over there.
Why not, you know?" I called Shane McConkey
and I was like, "Hey, Shane, I think I found
a cliff to do a ski BASE jump on Mount Hood."
He said, "Good luck, man.
I looked for something for like six years up there.
There's nothing you can BASE jump on Mount Hood."
I was like, "No, I think I found something."
He was like, "All right."
A month later, there was an opening,
so I just jumped in my car,
and I got there and hiked up and found this cliff.
The game plan is going to be,
of course, going up top of the cliff.
I'm going to laser straight from the top down
so I'll get a pretty precise idea of how big
the cliff is, then if it's not windy, right now,
it's dead calm, these are the two factors: I want
to know how big it is, and I want to make sure,
of course, that the wind is not too strong because
that could collapse your canopy or slam you into a wall
or that could be pretty much deadly.
If all these factors are good, then climb up,
put my fear on the side, point it, and send it.
Matthias:
I just hiked up and then put my rig on and took
a deep breath, and it took forever to relax.
This cliff had never been jumped before.
I had only 20 BASE jumps, and I'd never ski BASED before.
I called Shane the night before and he said,
"Hit it like a normal ski jump,
pull your parachute, and don't die."
That's pretty much the only instructions I had.
That was perfect.
Matthias: That was sweet, man.
Speaker 1: That was sick.
Matthias: It's a pretty big cliff, man.
Speaker 1: How was it?
It went the way you expected or what?
Walk me through it.
Matthias: It was a, It was beautiful, man.
I don't even really know how to explain it.
It just came so fast, then I saw the edge
and was like, "All right.
Dude, you've committed. There's no going back."
And then the edge comes
and your just like the perfect nob, just like a little "poof",
you know, like you air just a roller at ski resort
but you look down and you got like,
it felt like you had 250 feet and pulled
and then I was just chilling. I'm like,
"All right, stay stable I didn't want to flip on my back
and get my skis tangled in the lines."
All I did was just wait,
be super calm, and it was awesome dude.
This activity, what he has found
some years ago, fits him perfectly
because he is individual, he is looking, alone,
for challenges, and this is total extreme.
I think he has been looking for that without knowing that.
Robert: My boy, he's a clever boy.
And also, he's a philosopher.
He's trying to find the sense of life, the meaning of life.
I think his experiments are reflecting
a philosophical thought.
Erik: There's a lot of people
who can talk about it, but actually
going through the steps to properly do it
and get to that stage where you are
scending cliffs and making your own decision
and opening up new areas, he obviously
wanted to do it, took the steps,
and he's still doing it and alive today.
So that's a good sign.
Chad Labass: It's hard to relate
with what Matthias is doing.
It's freaking, it's next-level stuff.
Not everyone's wired even to think about doing that stuff.
He's like, "Oh yeah, I'm going to go do this." I'm like, "Okay,
sounds crazy." There he is, off another cliff.
Matthias: Booyah!
Julian Carr: I think Matthias is borderline a genius
and borderline a mad man.
I think most breakthroughs in life from brilliant
thinkers and scientists have been half-mad anyway.
I think he's mostly a genius.
Suzanne: What kid has not gone
up to their mom, saying, "Will you please
safety-pin a towel around my neck so I could
run around the house and act like Superman"?
We all want to fly and here's Matthias doing it.
Matthias: I heard somewhere that you only
need three things in life, and one of them is something
to do right now, the second one is something to look
forward to, and the third one is someone to love.
Having a passion gives you two out of those three.
Then once you have to someone to love to go back to, then
that's the third element of that triangle of happiness.
I mean basically, we were set up on a blind date.
We met and we went to go to a bar and then
he wooed me with the offer of making me
dinner and then that eventually led to us
spending everyday together ever since.
I think food, that was what got me.
Matthias: Truly, this person
helps me become a better person.
I hope I can help her become a better person too, I guess.
We inspire each other.
Life is about being inspired, and she makes me want to be
romantic, but she makes me also want to go and pursue my dreams.
Joann: Our fourth date was here.
I took his dog out for a walk, and I watched him jump.
Matthias: Three, two, one. See you.
Joann: I think that was a breakthrough
because I got to see something that
he was passionate about and I enjoyed it
but also could understand why he does it.
I think that moved him a little bit.
Matthias: Nice little family date with the family,
the doggy, the most beautiful woman in the world, got
to do a little BASE jump on the rock right behind me,
and I'm going to go get another parachute and do it again.
That's how you spend your Saturday, people.
Hell yes, jumping off shit.
Joann: We share core principles,
and we value each other's character,
but we're completely different people
with completely different purposes in life.
The good thing is that our common purpose is that
we want to make sure that each other's happy.
I know that BASE jumping or whatever his passion
is will make him happy, that'll make me happy.
He can run around naked all he wants if that makes him happy.
It doesn't make me happy though.
Matthias: With Joann, I found balance.
I think, before, with all the chaos I had in my life, I
wrapped myself too much in passions and within skiing
and jumping, and it was my answer to all my problems,
but it can't be your answer to all your problems.
Eventually, reality strikes back and you have to confront it.
Joann: I know that he'll never be totally satisfied because
he's ambitious but, at the same time,
he's done so much, so I trust him.
All of the projects he has, I have absolute
confidence that he's done his research.
I feel like he's so committed to our relationship that
he would never want to jeopardize himself or us,
so that makes me trust him a lot,
and that's why I don't think
that he would do any sort of project
that would put us at risk either.
So what I'm hoping to do is get on the ridge, climb here,
then maybe rappel down, click in my gear here and then ski
that line, which is a short line, but it's one of the very
prestigious peaks in the Alps that are really beautiful.
I like to map out things like that on pictures
and also on satellite pictures like
Google Earth or things like that because it
gives you a good idea what you could do.
You never know until you fly up there with a helicopter.
You might go and be, "Man, it's not
possible." I'd rather lose 500 bucks and not
jump than be there and be like, "Okay,
I'm going to try and see if it works."
Matthias: We just got dropped by the helicopter.
We're going to go straight down below.
There's a little pointy ledge,
ski between the rocks and then jump into the abyss,
open the parachute and fly into the valley.
And I spent a fortune on heli time
but you know what, it's worth it.
You have one life. Live your dream. Let's do it.
Have a good time. See you guys at the bottom.
Matthias: All right. That was it. Ski BASE
at the Matterhorn. I got extremely lucky on this jump.
I just skied down between the rocks,
snow felt pretty good and then right
as I jumped and tapped that ledge
to jump into the face, my ski came off.
That was almost a disaster, so I decided to go
into a big front flip to get out of it and then
once I found my ski was out of the way, I just
pulled my parachute and then it worked out.
I got a good flight, I couldn't believe it.
I had just a few line twists but I was able to get out of them
It was a close call but hey, I'm alive.
I'm not hurt.
We did it, not in the cleanest manner, but we did it.
I don't know if I'd do it again though.
This mountain is gnarly.
It's really gnarly but yes, we got it.
Josephina: I'm not proud.
I respect what he does, but it's also something which is
rather selfish because he needs to perform this, to do this.
Matthias: I grew up in a good family, my
dad being a doctor and my mother staying at home
and technically doing everything for,
they were everything for their kids but
a lot of instability at home.
My mother was overbearing, manipulative woman,
really hard with my sisters, especially.
Josephina: When you have children, you love them,
you have the duty to care for them to help them become adults.
I would only give the advice to other parents to respect
their choice because many parents make that mistake.
We all make mistakes, and we learn from those mistakes.
Matthias: The mountains were
always my escape to be able get away a little
bit from the family atmosphere that was
just getting really, really heavy.
Then I started learning more things about my
family's past, my aunt committing suicide, my
grandmother being very depressive, and then my
sister Birgit tried to commit suicide several times.
She was clinically depressed.
I was aware of it at the time, but I didn't really choose
to confront it because you're a kid, you have so much
stuff happening in your head, and the way to deal with it
for me was to go and escape in the mountains and ski.
I wanted to take my skiing further
because that's what I loved.
That's always my drive to kind of
get away from home was to go skiing.
The mountain's were my shelter.
I mean I felt good there.
Nature is unpredictable, but it was way
more predictable than being at home.
Eventually, my sister just killed herself.
She couldn't take it anymore.
She jumped out of her window in the apartment in Paris.
I was 18 at the time.
It was really a hard experience for the whole family.
Somehow, she couldn't find what was important to her in life.
I have the chance to have a passion and even
though I was broken at a time it was happening,
it gave me extra motivation to get strong again
and follow my passion and follow skiing.
So I guess, her death made me more alive, in a way.
The other side of it is doing dangerous things.
It made me realize that what I'm going
to do is going to have an impact on my
family, obviously, I saw it, firsthand,
on my sister's death, it affected everyone.
That's it. You change forever.
Josephina: I said, "Matthias, I'm very scared.
If I would not be scared, I would not be a good mother.
A mother gives birth, a mother doesn't want a child to die."
Matthias: It's hard, I go back and forth.
There's nights I wake up in sweats,
thinking about a project and telling myself,
"Man, you could die, you're not ready for this."
But somehow when I get into the situation itself
and it's time to go, I'm able to realize
that if I don't do that now, my life is not really worth living.
To live a true life, you have to actually control
your fear and accept death whenever it comes.
At the same time, I don't want to be reckless.
All right.
Three, two, one. See you.
Josephina: He said yesterday to me, "Mommy, you know,
when I take a plane to go somewhere in the world,
I often think perhaps I'm not coming back."
So he's aware of the risk,
seeing his friends die, seven died last year.
I understand why he does what he does,
but if he were not to come back to me alive,
I definitely would find that pretty unforgivable.
Matthias: Taking risk like that
for a living when you have a family
could be viewed as selfish,
but it's not selfish because I'm not reckless.
Stefan Laude: The thing is, when you push your level higher
and higher and higher, it's difficult not to think about
"One day it will go wrong, and I will die."
Of course, when you live out of it,
when you have that social standards
and you make people dream, it's hard.
I hope he's going to stop at the good moment,
I hope, I really hope.
Todd: Things go wrong.
It's just human nature, things will go wrong.
In BASE jumping, particularly ski BASING,
you can't have anything go wrong.
Matthias: In the world of skiing and BASE jumping
we, unfortunately, lose a lot of people.
In the world of BASE jumping, particularly,
when somebody dies, we call it going in
because a lot of the time, people go into the ground.
It's pretty dark and self-explanatory,
but it's to the point.
Todd: What sucks is the people
that I've known that have gone in
were the reason why I got into the sport,
they were the Jedis of the sport.
You're just getting away with something
that shouldn't be humanly possible, and yet
you keep doing it because it's so damn fun.
Matthias: But then... then Shane passed away.
Reporter: Influential skier and BASE jumper Shane
McConkey became famous around the world for defying death.
While performing a stunt for cameras in Italy on Thursday,
the sport he helped popularize took his life.
McConkey leaves behind his wife, Sherry, and their
three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Ayla.
Todd: Then it's like, "Whoa, wait a minute.
That guy was the sickest guy on the planet, had so much
experience, did everything right and then went in.
He's my hero.
Where does that leave us?" It's brutal.
Here we are still doing it, but I don't know.
Jessie: Shane passing was pretty hard because
he was definitely just like someone I always looked up to.
He was the man just innovating, ski BASE jumping.
It's pretty hard to not have him here anymore.
He contributed a lot, and he had a good run.
He's a great man.
Matthias: I didn't even have 100 BASE jumps
when Shane passed away; the guy had probably 700, I think.
He was my hero.
It makes you think that "Well, if that
happens to him, it can definitely happen to me."
At the same time, you can look at it in another way
and tell yourself, "Okay, people like Shane gave us a gift of
being able to look at mountains and life
and possibilities a whole other way.
I can look at that mountain this way
or I can look at it this way
and be, "Okay, I can ski all this
and then I can fly away, and that's beautiful."
After Shane passed away, about a year later, I got to
go to the Eiger and finally, ski BASE jump it myself.
Shane did it, JT did it, you have to do it.
If you want to call yourself a ski BASE jumper,
to me, you had to ski BASE the Eiger.
Joann: Yes, it's risky.
Sometimes, I get a little nervous, but his
thing is the minute he lands and when
he gets service, he usually texts me
or calls me to let me know that he's okay.
Matthias: You have the most
beautiful woman that you need to go back to.
Then that love blooms into fatherhood and you
have a kid on the way, my consequences are real.
You have a beautiful wife that depends on you,
and you have a son that is going to need
a father figure, so then you start questioning
yourself, "Should I keep doing this or not?"
You realize, "Well, what kind of example do I want to be?"
For me, I think the biggest example you can set
is to have the courage to follow what matters to you.
This baby should be a huge turning in his life.
You have to forget yourself to raise a child,
but he needs this extreme jumping, definitely.
Joann: This is a risky job,
but he's going to be an amazing father.
I can't wait to just say, "This is ours
and no one else's."
I think it's the moment when we lock eyes with the baby.
That's going to be probably one of the happiest days of my life.
Matthias: I'm actually a planner and I
wanted to get as much my projects done as I
could before the birth of Sören so I could take
a lot of time off and be home and be a super dad.
Joann: He just started to pile on a lot of jumps and work
stuff and just trying to get it all done before Sören was born.
Sören was just making all kinds of fuss in my belly.
I almost thought I was in labor.
It was just crazy.
I felt a ton of pain and discomfort.
Matthias, right before leaving, said,
"I don't know if I feel good about this.
I should probably stay.
You look like you could need to go to hospital or something."
Instead, I just said, "No, you've planned this.
Let's just commit, that's what we do.
Just commit, you're going," and he went.
Matthias: We're here in Megéve
because I am going to do a first descent.
Ski BASE jumping descent of this peak
that is just outside of town called the Pon d'Areu.
This peak is really the first mountain that
welcomes you as you arrive in this valley here.
It's this pretty big mountain.
We have to climb for 5,000 feet.
It's going to take about five hours to get up there.
45 to 50 degrees slope.
That slowly brings you to a 700-foot cliff.
It's gnarly.
It's fun and it's right here at home.
This is where everything started.
I made my first turns here when I was 18-months-old.
Jumped my first cliffs.
It's just this area is so rich in features
and places where you can go and push yourself.
Really push yourself.
Let's just dare to dream big and go all the way up there and ski
this thing like it will probably never be skied ever again.
How are you doing?
Alex: Hi, Matthias. I am Alex. Nice to meet you.
Matthias: Nice to meet you, Alex, finally.
How are you doing, dude?
Stefan: Great to see you.
Matthias: Ready for another adventure?
Stefan: Yes. Ready to go.
Matthias: Alright so what's the plan, guys.
Alex: Tomorrow morning, I think we're going to leave
at 2:30 form Megéve,
and we're going to park the car here at Romme.
Around three o'clock we're going to walk here,
close to the ski lift, take the Sallaz
and we go there in this place.
After we're going to put on the crampons
and climb this little couloir here.
After we do the top and here my job is finished.
After your job is to ski there and jump the Tours d'Areu.
Matthias: I have to follow the ridge
because I'm jumping past six,
there's the surplomb right here, overhang.
I'm using the surplomb as the jump.
I'm jumping away from the tower so I don't land in it.
When I hit this because there's another tower here...
Alex: It's a small tower.
You have a big overhang there.
Matthias: That's why because I think the overhang
will position me about already halfway down this.
With the trajectory, I'm going to be past all this.
Alex: Exactly.
Matthias: I don't want to jump in that wall.
Alex: There because maybe you will touch.
Matthias: Yeah, it's not suitable for BASE jumping.
I think I left a femur up there. Yeah, so that's the idea.
Matthias: I've been looking at this mountain
for about, really looking in the area for about 15 years.
I tried two months ago, got to the top and had to turn around.
It was too dangerous.
Hopefully, this is it. But you know that's the thing.
Once you have some pretty ambitious goals
and big mountains like that
it takes you sometimes two, three,
four, five attempts to get it done.
It's not just an overnight thing.
You just kind of have to be persistent
and try to go at it again and again.
So, let's cross our fingers hopefully it will go down today.
See you guys later.
Once you get to a certain point, your eagerness
you get it done, your ambition becomes
so much stronger than your fear
that it's easier almost to be like, "Well, screw it.
Let's just go." Then actually stepping back and be like,
"This is bad. This is bad."
Once you have a parachute on your back
you feel like superman,
and you got to remind yourself that you're just a human.
Sounds a little crazy, but it's true.
Your amped you've got your skis on top of the mountain,
your parachute like, "What can possibly go wrong?"
A lot of stuff can go wrong.
You got to keep a cool head and just be very pragmatic.
I've gotta remind myself this today.
All right.
It's about to get real here.
Just traversed all the way from the other side
and we're about to tackle this couloir right here.
I can't speak anymore. It's pretty cold.
Probably have another couple of hours to get to the summit.
Alex: Yeah, two hours.
Matthias: Two hours we should be there.
We should be summiting around nine o'clock, quarter to nine.
Let's get moving.
Here we go.
That's the beast.
We gotta get to the top of this.
Yes, brother.
Stefan:
Good conditions.
Matthias: It's an insane process when you jump.
When Before you hit the edge your heart is pounding
and your instinct tells you that it's so wrong.
You should not be doing this.
Somehow you tell yourself that it's okay.
Your gear is fine. The weather is good.
You know how to do this. You visualize the right move.
Then you force yourself to go.
You just know that fear of death is not
a valid excuse to give up on your dreams.
Speaker 2: I was going to put it here.
Let's put right here, dude.
You got to keep it real.
Matthias: All right. Fire away Gershitz.
Speaker 2: What happened?
Matthias: It looks like I had a cliff strike.
I'm in a hospital right now.
I remember skiing to the edge of the cliff.
Then I don't remember anything anymore.
Stefan: I said, "Matthias, the way that these birds
are flying is the meaning that it's windy down there.
I'm sure.
I'm not going." He said, "Yes. Okay. I'm going."
Matthias: I had a doubt about the wind.
I could tell there was some thermals.
I was afraid that this could send me into the cliff.
I decided to go and go big, to get away from the cliff.
A second and a half after my parachute
inflated I got slammed into the wall.
It knocked me out broke my femur.
Then normally when you hit a wall, you slide down
the whole wall and you don't really go anywhere.
I had a really slow flying parachute
that doesn't have much forward speed.
I think that actually helped me.
The parachute turned away from the cliff and did a full-on
180 and then I flew 4000 feet completely unconscious.
I was flying in and out of the clouds and the guys filming
from the helicopter were like, "Well, he's
probably dead but let's see where the body lands."
Right now honestly,
I'm questioning myself whether I should keep doing it.
I just want to go home and be a good father
and be there for my wife and my son.
I know that down the road that it is worth it because if
it is a meaning to a life it is a meaning to existence.
You have to have the courage to live it this way.
Speaker 2: What's next?
Matthias: What's next?
Heal up and then hopefully get this one done again.
Speaker 2: You want to go back?
Matthias: Yes.
I have to do it.
I have to ski the Pon d'Areu and do it in a safe manner
because I have to.
The first call that Joanne got was:
"Okay, we picked up Matthias.
He's definitely way beat up.
He broke a lot of stuff.
He's not in good shape and we don't know
if he's going to make it."
I felt so bad that she got this call
three weeks before giving birth pretty much.
Then she got a second call
and the second call was, "You know he's going to survive.
He's okay, but he has major brain damage."
Then the third call she got was, "Hey, he's back to normal.
He's flying home tomorrow."
Matthias: How are you doing, sweetie?
I was in the hospital for two weeks
and in a coma for three days.
My brain was bleeding, double fracture on my femur.
I truly am given a second chance.
I shouldn't be alive after something like that.
This baby that is going to be born is the most innocent
and fragile thing ever and I need to be there for it.
But also I need to be in the right place
because this baby needs a real dad.
Finally, I made it home six days before the birth of Sören.
I was on crutches, but I was still able to be in the OR
and be there for Sörens' birth, so that was great.
Here's our latest addition to the family,
our little Sören, Sören Reef Giraud.
Here he is.
Definitely super stoked that I made it back on time for him.
It's a big gift.
It's awesome.
He's a stud and right away I was like, "You know what?
This kid is just born, went through something
traumatic himself." All three of us did.
Joanne went through labor.
I went through a near-death experience
and then he was going through birth.
He was just laying down in his little incubator
like nothing happened
and right away I just knew that he was a good little guy.
Joanne: The minute that personality came out,
right around three months
he just became more and more like Matthias.
He is so much like his father.
He's one-track-minded, super determined and hopefully
eventually resilient, exuberant, very charming, funny.
He's got a great smile.
Really this baby is just so much like his dad.
Matthias: I love hearing him laugh and seeing him happy.
Being able to see so much pure joy is so refreshing.
I don't know if I'm neurotic or there's something wrong with me,
but like I truly need to put myself in difficult situations
physically and emotionally
to be able to reach a state of happiness
and peace in my life, but when I see him it's so simple.
It makes me so stoked and so happy.
It's a completely different happiness than
jumping or skiing, but it's so pure and simple.
That's beautiful.
I guess that's what being a dad is.
Joanne: We used to hypothetically,
before I was even ever pregnant,
"What would happen if you had a kid
and with this change what you do?"
He would get on a soapbox and say, "No, this is my passion.
I'm never gonna let anyone stop me." I respected that.
This is who he is and he's very driven, but now that I'm
a mom with a baby, if he dies, what's going to happen?
I think about it all the time, but if that accident
didn't make him learn something, I don't know what will.
Matthias: The question is, how far do you want to go to pursue
your dreams and how compatible
with your family life those dreams are?
I'm just realizing that jumping is compatible
with having a family,
but you have to be extremely aware of your surrounding.
I feel like I need to go back out there because
when you have a calling in life,
you have to follow it no matter what the consequences are.
My first ski BASE jump after the accident is going
to be an intense one for sure, and I can't wait.
Big milestone today I just got off crutches.
I'm still walking with a little bit of a limp, but I'm
so happy to be able to put weight back on my leg.
Just saw the doctor and he said that I
should just ease back into all activities.
Just walking, I don't know what to do with myself right now.
This is amazing. I'm so happy.
Next stop jumping off cliffs.
Being a pro skier and base jumper, technically
going to work is jumping off cliffs
and skiing down mountains,
but at this point, because the only thing I could do
was train, training and rehabbing was my full-time job.
Denny Dragen: When elite athletes get hurt,
their world is more affected
because they realize that's how they make their living.
It's kind of an eye-opener when they go, "Oh my God,
I'm not going to be able to do this
for a certain amount of time."
Matthias: I was non-weight bearing for three months.
I had so much tissue knotted up in my hip.
A lot of the recovery at first
was just to get some body motions back.
It was so stiff.
I could barely hold my balance on one leg.
Denny: He had to be able to ski.
He had to be able to load that leg, bend it.
It had to be able to take lots of forces.
Early on it was really trying to restore motion.
That's really slow.
The first eight weeks is really all about range of motion
and then after that, we are just adding strength stuff
just like anyone does, trying to restore him to
be able to handle the pressures on the big mountains.
Matthias: It's a mental and physical struggle
to come back from a super-gnarly experience.
You spend so much time fine-tuning
that machine so it's really precise and efficient,
and then you have to do that all over again
in a very short amount of time.
Being able to do it again is so much more rewarding, I think.
I started skydiving again four months
after the accident, so that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3: That was good times.
Matthias: It's good to be back.
I started base jumping six months after.
Three, two, one.
Send it!
Oh yeah, stoked, yeah.
Matthias: It's crazy but now I'm like
coming back pretty much from the dead and getting
pounded ski BASE jumping, it's, every base jump or now
I'm going to start ski BASE jumping again.
It's like no matter how many times you've jumped the thing
now it feels like your first time again every jump.
I'm feeling like I'm going
from my first ski BASE jump again now.
It's gnarly.
I've been having to go to the bathroom
like every 15 minutes since yesterday.
You can just traverse there and then straight back down here.
Bambam: Let's go and do something stupid.
Matthias: For sure. Let's do it.
Bambam: Not stupid, highly controlled and thought out.
Matthias: My last one was stupid.
Bambam: Let's not be stupid.
I hate stupid guys.
Speaker 4: The last time you ski BASED was the one?
Matthias: Yes, I haven't ski BASED since then.
Which is why I'm fucking terrified now.
It's easy to get into a fight if you've never
gotten your ass kicked before you say, "I'm going
to do this." Then stepping back into the ring
when you've gotten way beat up is super hard.
Now I've been ski BASE jumping for six
years and I've lost a lot of friends.
I've almost lost my life, I've got a lot of injuries.
You get up there and you start thinking about
all the shitty things that have happened.
Somehow you still going back out there
and you know you have all this experience,
but you can't take it for granted
because it's a new beginning.
You're rediscovering it but with all the good
but then a lot of the bad things too.
So it just amplifies it way more.
I'm going to ski down from that knob up there because
I can't ski this super fast the snow is variable.
It's good snow.
First ski BASE since my crash and snow is a little variable.
My goal is to have a clean safe ski BASE jump.
Josephina: What can I know about his mind when he's going to jump
the next jump and he's up there high in the mountains,
no return possible.
It's all or nothing at all.
What is he thinking at that moment?
To his wife, to his baby? I don't know. I don't know.
Joanne: Sometimes I think, is this selfish,
maybe because it's a personal fulfillment
but at the same time, if we're not personally
fulfilled as people, then we can't fully
take on roles as a father or a husband,
or what other roles you play in your life.
Matthias: Chest strap. Leg straps.
Good chunk of pilot chute.
How's the wind down there, Bambam?
All right. Ready? Dropping.
I'm back.
I'm not a religious person.
I don't believe in God.
I don't believe in all that but I do believe
in the higher power of nature itself
because the ocean can crush you at any time,
the mountains can crush at any time.
Just having the mountains
allow you that gift to be able to get back to
what is so dear and important to you,
is just overwhelming and so good.
Yes. Yes.
Got my heart going so much.
It felt like I was ski BASE jumping,
learning to ski BASE all over again.
Yes. Yes.
I got to pick up my little guy from school
and I got a surprise for him.
He has no clue what he's going to find in his backyard.
Matthias:
Joanne: Skateboarding started.
Sometimes I wonder if Matthias sort of spoon fed it to him
a little bit but he was on it one day and he seemed to
be interested in Matthias's skateboard
and really taking to it and turns out
Sören's quite good at it.
Matthias: We're going to skateboard Academy.
Sören goes to skateboard Academy once a week
so I pick him up from school
and we go straight to the skate park.
Skateboarding school.
Matthias: I'm already mentoring him
to have the correct mindset to do this stuff
because it's your mindset that is going to keep you alive.
Just like its your mindset that could kill you.
The other day I asked him,
"What do you want to do as a pro skater?"
He looks at me like I'm an idiot and he goes, "Well, mega ramp."
Of course, he picks mega ramp, the gnarliest, biggest thing.
I love watching him skateboard.
He's learning the concept of dedication
and having to pay your dues.
If he gets hurt, he gets hurt that's why we put pads on him.
If you get beat up that's part of the dedication, man.
If you get beat up then you've got to stand up
and keep going again.
Also, it teaches you how to make
smart decisions too and how to manage risk.
I don't expect him to be a pro skier like his dad.
I don't expect him to be a pro skateboarder either.
I just want him to have this one passion,
that becomes the driving force of his existence.
And right now I feel like
skateboarding is getting him in a really happy place.
It's awesome.
Joanne: Skiing has been something
that he's always done too
and he's gotten quite good at that as well in the last year.
I think that Sören is also just intrigued in it
because it's a lifestyle that his dad's a part of,
but I'd like him to have his own life and his own career.
I would like him to have his own interests
and feel no pressure to do something as extreme as his dad.
Matthias: I don't know if I want him to BASE jump
because every parent worries about the safety of their child
and BASE jumping is the worst thing you can do.
It's the greatest sport in my opinion,
but it's the worst thing you can do
just because I've been around the good, the bad and the ugly.
And I just know the reality of it.
I've experienced it myself.
I don't want my son necessarily to get into this,
but if he wants to, I will make it my duty
to mentor him and give him
as many tools as I can for him to survive.
Joanne: I don't know if any parent
would ever wish that on their child.
I almost think that BASE jumping is a compulsion
of Matthias's, he's always felt it.
I don't think that it's a compulsion of Sören.
Matthias has always said he's been wanting to do this
since a really young age.
Matthias: You have people that are dear to you
and people that care about you and that you care about,
but I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing
because this is what I chose to dedicate myself to.
It was about three years after the accident.
My timing was getting better when I was base jumping
and skiing and I'm thinking about a plan in my head
on how to do the Pon d'Areu again.
One day, Sören looks at me and he goes, "Papa,
when you'll be old, I'm going to teach you how to skateboard.
When you'll die, I'll bury you with your skis
and your skateboard."
So I asked him a question like, "Sören, what made you
think about that?" Then he goes, "It's because my heart
knows your heart." That gave me so much peace and pride.
I think that's the peace and pride that I truly needed
to commit to this project.
Joanne: I always knew that Matthias would go back.
He's never made this a surprise for me.
Every time you go anywhere
it's so weather dependent and it's luck.
He could be doing the same jump three times a day
and that one day it could just be an off day.
For me it was just, let's get this over with.
Matthias: The one thing that I was struggling with was,
well, I could still go and do this thing but not come home.
The mountains do not discriminate.
It doesn't matter how fit and ready you are.
If I don't come home, what do I leave behind for Sören
except from a distant memory
and some cool videos on the Internet?
So I wrote a letter.
It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.
Matthias: Sören, I wrote you
this letter in case I'm not coming home.
You need to know that I'm not abandoning you.
I love you with all my heart.
You are the son I've always dreamt of having.
Every time I leave home I miss you more and more.
You are with me wherever I travel to.
I always have your passport picture in my wallet.
When you were a baby I never left home
without a pair of your baby socks.
Death is normal.
We all have an expiration date.
A strong man accepts his mortality.
A weak man is consumed by his fear of the inevitable.
It's been six years since I tried to ski BASE
jump the mountain that almost killed me.
I hit the wall four times.
I had a double brain hemorrhage, three days
in a coma, double fracture on my left femur.
Part of me has always been left on that mountain.
I decided that I needed to do it again.
Do not get upset if people criticize me.
People always criticize what they don't understand.
Remember that missing someone is wonderful
because it means you have had the chance to experience
unforgettable moments with that person.
But my journey is over as a man.
Live with passion, purpose,
and share these moments with the right people.
I love you more than words can explain.
My heart knows your heart.
From papa.
Good morning.
Stefan: Hello America.
It's 3:46 in the morning right now.
The mountain is beautiful.
The air is calm so far.
We're going to start climbing.
We're heading towards the mountain.
Hoping to get this thing done today.
The mountain will decide.
In the meantime, we will pay our dues and be humble.
See you guys later.
Stefan: Be humble, get down.
Matthias: We're almost at the summit.
We got to go to the couloir right there.
Climb up the couloir then up the ridge and that's it.
We are on top of the face so it's the last push.
Let's get going.
Stefan: Hello, my name is Stefan.
I am the cameraman. I'm French, you know I'm smoking.
Feel good here because I'm not the one that's going to jump.
So, No problem.
Matthias: A man has to go and experience his own adventures
so he can come back at peace and be there for his family.
You want to have a family if you do this.
Sounds maybe crazy to some people, but Joanne and Sören
are an incredibly strong foundation for this projects.
I want to come home. I want to tickle my little monkey.
I want to kiss my wife. You have something so huge to lose.
There's so much on the line that you got to stick it.
You got to do it right.
3, 2, 1...
Matthias: Part of me will always be
on this cliff forever I got served.
But now I could look at it and this place went
from being a dark dungeon to being home.
The first thing that I thought about after that
was, I want to bring my son to this place.
It's not a place of darkness.
It's one of the most beautiful spots in the Alps.
I want to be able to share that with him.
Woo Hoo.
Matthias: That's it I did it. Ski BASE jump of the Pon d'Areu.
I'm so glad I packed for a fast opening this time
because I opened right above the tower
that impacted six years ago.
But yeah, a successful jump.
I can close this chapter of my life.
Thank you so much.
I love you mountains.