So far, Danny MacAskill has taken on an Argentinian ghost town and explored his own imagination, but for his latest film he’s heading home to tackle Skye’s Inaccesible Pinnacle

Words & photos: Andy McCandlish

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burbled awake, in that semi-confused state that only a

well-earned daytime sleep can generate. Fresh air. Lots of fresh

air. I sat up, wiped the best part of a pint of dribble from my chin and

looked around. It all came back in a shot. Lying

five feet to my right was Danny macAskill, red bull trials rider and media darling, wrapped in his down

jacket with hood pulled over his face. Down at my feet was Stu Thomson, good friend and director of the movie

that was currently being filmed. both were snoozing quietly, wedged into rocks

in an attempt to get comfortable and not slide off our lofty position. Further out, others were likewise sleeping or brewing tea on stoves.

The fresh air and exposure was unavoidable at this location: 3,000ft up on top of the Cuillin ridge on Skye, all sneaking a rest, wedged into cracks in the rock. It was the fifth consecutive day of filming, getting up at 4am and working for 12 hours minimum. Hence the midday snooze. And there would be many more to come.

The Cuillin ridge is the kind of place that would have mountain goats hyperventilating into a paper bag. It is 12km of bare rock knife-edge, hugely exposed with, in many places, a 500m drop only a trip or stumble away. moving involves tricky scrambling and technical rock climbing. Climbers know it well as a multi-day expedition (once you are up, there are few ways down until

the end) and also as a stiff training ground for the Alps or Himalaya.

one of the highlights is the Inaccessible Pinnacle, a vertical blade of rock well known as the only munro (mountain over 914m) that requires actual rock climbing to summit. In short, it is generally considered ‘lacking in mountain-biking potential’.

evidently, no one told macAskill. being born and bred on Skye, Danny’s plan was to get his bike right into the thick of these mountains to do what he does best: push the boundaries of bike riding. As if that wasn’t enough, he wouldn’t be

using his usual trials bike, but a brand new Santa Cruz bronson Carbon, complete with enve carbon wheels — not half as robust or manoeuvrable. Time would tell.

Stu had jumped at the chance to film the event, and the bbC had sent a camera crew to film Stu’s team as they pitched in and attempted this very tricky shoot. With marshall the camera, Lec the drone pilot for heli-filming, matt and John the mountain guides, Alan and Smail the load-carrying muscle, and Chris and Paul filming for the bbC, it was quite a band, every day resembling an expedition snaking its way up the hill.

DAN NY ’S P LAN WAS TO D O WHAT H E D O E S B E ST : PU S H TH E B O U N DAR I E S O F B I KE R I D I N G

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Crunch time: Danny’sSanta Cruz faces the moment of truth

Riding at full tiltmeans just thatfor Danny

DANNY ’S MOv IESIt all started back in 2009 when he got together with his then flatmate Dave Sowerby to make a street trials video for fun. That first video has now been watched over 35 million times: youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o.

It has led Danny from strength to strength, such as his video ‘Way Back Home’ — showing a road trip through Scotland: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj6ho1-G6tw … or his hugely popular and amazingly clever ‘Imaginate’: youtube.com/watch?v=Sv3xVOs7_No.

I wonder what Danny would have said, on those early wintry Edinburgh streets, if you had told him he’d wind up filming in the Playboy Mansion? youtube.com/watch?v=7KPU7DWRe1Y.dannymacaskill.co.uk

until 2am the following morning. If anyone started out under the illusion that filming an extreme sports movie was glamorous, they didn’t hold on to it for long.

each night, an impromptu planning meeting would form in the small house hired as base, with interested parties sitting around on metal camera boxes and bike parts, checking the forecast and planning the next day’s activities accordingly. others floated in and out from their jobs, making food or repacking bags, or just to take a quick shower.

on the second night, with the weather set clear for a few days, it was decided to accelerate the schedule and take in the big day sooner rather than later — the Inaccessible Pinnacle. matt had made it clear the crowds that flock to tackle the ‘Inn Pinn’ on a good summer day like this would make filming a problem, so it was agreed we’d make a 4am start to be up at the pinnacle before 8am. The nightly pasta party and viewing of Predator broke up earlier than usual as everyone faded to bed.

It was a rag-tag film crew, shuffling around in the half-light, that greeted the dawn with a grunt and loaded up for another long day on the hill. Al weighed himself on the bathroom scales loaded down with his Steadicam and assorted hardware and declared it had added over four stone — approximately one-third of his body weight.

everyone else was under a similarly heavy load, especially Lec and matt toting the helicopter on its pole.

Anyone who knows the Inn Pinn will tell you it is a fairly straightforward rock climb — but a rock climb nonetheless. once the troops assembled at 950m, at the foot of the blade of rock that makes up the pinnacle, the sun was just coming up over the ridge behind. matt and John set to work. The idea was to ‘top-rope’ Danny for maximum protection as he shouldered the bike and climbed.

WINN PINN As Stu filmed, Danny quickly got frustrated at the rope and decided it could be thrown free. You can only imagine the guide’s thoughts on this move — but throw it he did, at halfway up, and free-climbed the rest of the way, bike on shoulder. The exposure is dizzying, and the subsequent head-cam footage was heart-stopping. Then again, he wouldn’t be Danny mac if he was respectful of danger, would he?

early morning mist poured over the ridgeline behind as the crew feverishly filmed, the guides did their best to secure Danny but stay hidden in the rocks and Lec deftly flew the drone in smooth circles round the pinnacle. Danny summited before 9am, climbing out on to the ‘bolster stone’ — a summit block about the size of a small coffee

TH E ExPO S U R E I S D Izz Y I N G AN D TH E S U B S E q U E NT H EAD cAM FO OTAG E WAS H EART-STO PP I N G

This look was completed by the drone helicopter, transported up and down the mountain slung underneath a six-foot pole. When carried between two of the ‘porters’, carbon legs hanging limp, it looked like a downed alien being carried back to civilisation as a trophy.

A complete traverse of the ridge wasn’t going to be practical for filming, so the plan was to do it the hard way. We would head up every day to a different section of the ridge where Danny could do his stuff, before tackling a long and often tricky descent back to base to recharge and reload for the next day. matt and John scratched their heads long and hard to figure out the best access points where we could get up there, and Danny explored the ridge, looking for spots that would push his remarkable skills to the limits. His mantra when filming is: “Push yourself past the norm, and that way the footage will always look good,” or words to that effect. It works.

PUNISHING ScHEDULEThe first few days of filming set the standard: long days on the hill, staggering back down to the vans at 11pm in the fading light. With recharging, offloading footage and organising the next assault, Stu often wouldn’t get to bed

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f e a t u r eSkye’s answer to Moab’s slickrock is too good to pass up

When you’ve writtenthe rule book amanual comes easily

Slam dunk: Dannymakes a splash wherever he rides

table with a several-hundred-metre drop on all sides — to stand on his bike for the most stunning image of the trip. With clear blue sky above, incredible views the length of the toothy ridge behind, Stu was grinning from ear to sunburnt ear when the heli footage was played back; it was a shot of a lifetime.

on a high, the rest of the trip ran on from one ridiculous location to the next. Up by another pinnacle — the basteir Tooth — Danny gave us all a new respect for the strength of carbon. He had been eyeing up a huge jump, about 20ft, between two bus-sized boulders, but had decided to leave it till the end of the day. The drop was at least 10ft, and all the force of the landing would go through the bike; we were nervous it would suffer some kind of terminal, show-stopping explosion.

THE BIG DROPSo after dropping off some surrounding peaks, picking through rocks and balancing along a particularly exposed patch of ridge, making sure we got at least some material from the day, Danny lined up the big drop with everyone waiting nervously in place. Three cameras rolled as he sprung off the nose of one rock and dropped like a stone.

An earth-shattering bang echoed round the rock walls like a shotgun blast and everyone ran forward thinking the bike would be carbon matchsticks. The result? both wheels had sustained instant impact punctures but no other damage. I take my hat off to any bike Danny rides — but absorbing that impact was beyond the call of duty, even by Danny’s standards.

This theme continued into the final day, for which the biggest technical move of the trip was planned. A waist-high fence along the back of Glenbrittle beach had caught Danny’s attention in the recce trips. The plan? To hit the fence at speed, popping up to just short of the top, then

using the front wheel impact to ‘bump’ over into a 360-degree forward flip to land on the beach beyond, safely on his wheels. but, of course!

Smail and co got busy reinforcing the fence while Danny pulled mats into place. A few front flips without a bike, getting a feel for the distance required, rapidly progressed to flipping with the bike — spectacularly the first time as he lost contact and kicked the bike away high into the air before landing in a roll with his arms over his head. mats are all very well, but if a spiky 26lb bike drops on you, things could get painful.

mats away, he approached for the 30th time, but stopped short, head in hands; this really was hard, even for the macAskill. nearly two weeks of strenuous activity had taken its toll. We all understood that when he hit it successfully, it would be the last time, so all eyes and shutters were trained on his final run-up, impact, flip and landing. Success.

everyone breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. As we shot a final group picture of the crew, Cuillin ridge in the background, images of the trip flashed through my mind. Danny and Smail, arms wide, re-enacting the scene from Titanic at the bow rail of our hired boat brought tears of silent laughter to my eye. or the lads racing each other to strip and jump 25ft down into a deep river pool to fetch Danny’s helmet visor — lost when he popped his bike off the drop and into the river for fun.

Hell, even that snooze on top of the ridge, jammed into rocks, exhausted, brought back fond memories. It had been one hell of a trip — with the best, funniest and most talented company on the planet — filming and riding. I realised then that 10 days of incredible Skye weather had gone by in the blink of an eye. Stu had succeeded in pulling together what will turn out to be, I am sure, an amazing film. And being there was an unbeatable experience.

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AN EARTH-S HATTE R I N G BAN G E c H O E D R O U N D TH E R O c K WALLS L I KE A S H OTG U N B LAST

AN EARTH-S HATTE R I N G BAN G E c H O E D R O U N D TH E R O c K WALLS L I KE A S H OTG U N B LAST

WATcH THE F ILMIf that’s got you fired up to see the results in moving images, Danny’s new film The Ridge is out now. You can watch it by scanning this code or visiting po.st/KevJiT

You don’t need a yacht to goisland hopping

It could go either waywhen you’re riding on a trunk road

Flippin heck, they never did that on The Great Escape

Danny, champion of the world

Magnificent men withtheir flying machine